Turn on, tune in, drop out Turn on, tune in, drop out "Turn on, tune in, drop out" is a counterculture-era phrase popularized by Timothy Leary in 1966. In 1967 Leary spoke at the Human Be-In, a gathering of 30,000 hippies in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and phrased the famous words, "Turn on, tune in, drop out". It was also the title of his spoken word album recorded in 1966. On this lengthy album one can hear Leary speaking in a monotone, soft-spoken voice on his views about the world and humanity and describing nature, Indian symbols, "the meaning of inner life", the LSD
Timothy Leary drop out." In a 1988 interview with Neil Strauss, he said that this slogan was "given to him" by Marshall McLuhan when the two had lunch in New York City, adding, "Marshall was very much interested in ideas and marketing, and he started singing something like, 'Psychedelics hit the spot / Five hundred micrograms, that's a lot,' to the tune of [the well-known Pepsi 1950s singing commercial]. Then he started going, 'Tune in, turn on, and drop out.'" Though the more popular "turn on, tune in, drop out" became synonymous with Leary, his actual definition with the League for Spiritual