In honor of Peter, Paul, and Mary’s Mary Travers, who died last night, what’s the first “drug song” you were aware of as a child? By “aware,” man, I mean, like, cognizant of the fact that adults around you were mumbling about the song’s true meaning. As a young boy, I was aware that “Puff the Magic Dragon” has something to do with smoking…something. A couple of years later, I started hearing about the “true” meaning of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
Considering the demographic of our regular participants, it wouldn’t surprise me if these two songs end up being the first two gateway drug songs for the majority of us. However, rumor has it that some of you may not have been shaving until 1980 or later. What would younger folks’ first gateway drug songs have been in the second half of the ’70s, the ’80s, or – if our youngest Townspeople care to participate – the ’90s?
If you’d also like to take this into Last Man Standing territory…
Last Man Standing: Songs We Know Are Really About Drugs Despite Constant Denials by Their Songwriters!
I realize that I was really naïve at the time but I used to think that even songs like Rocky Mountain High and After the Gold Rush that explicitly mentioned getting high were about reaching a higher plane or state of consciousness and not necessarily about getting baked. I think my naïveté had something to do with coming of age in the more innocent era that was 70’s. Or I just might be obtuse.
As for the Last Man Standing: Can we count masturbation as a drug? (it’s pleasure inducing, addictive, people in polite society never cop to doing it, and I suspect that it is epidemic in our high schools.)
If so, then Turning Japanese.
How about “White Rabbit” by Mr. Mod’s fave rave group, the Jefferson Airplane?
I was told that “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” had something to do with drugs.
A youth minister at our church used to sing it all the time — and then word came down that song was forbidden because it was about DRUGS.
Somebody’s parents got all up in arms about their children being taught to get high in church.
I never heard that about “Raindrops…,” butcher pete. That’s a funny one.
How could I have forgotten “White Rabbit” for the poll?
“Raindrops”, of course, has nothing to do with drugs. You’d have to be insane to think so. But, the inmates run the asylum… or at least they did at that particular house of worship.
I guess Mellow Yellow was the first one I remember talking with my music buddy Skip about. But I wouldn’t have access to drugs till 1970, so when all of these drug songs were current, drugs were still a mysterious and remote concept. Pot, LSD, and banana peels were all equally mysterious and remote.
Definitely Lucy. My dad heard about the LSD connection on the radio on the way home from work and told us when he got home. Then had to explain to a five-year-old me what LSD was. I remember him telling us that Hey Jude was about heroin also.
Side note. As all music-loving dads, when a Beatles song comes on I’ll tell my boys the story behind/around it. My oldest, 15, beats me to it now. When hearing a psych Beatles tune he says:
“I know the story behind this one…The Beatles took a bunch of drugs and wrote a song.”
It’s Lucy for me also, although I can’t remember the context more specifically; it’s just something I “know.” Could have been sixth grade, when my friend Stephen and I were seriously into the Beatles for a bit. But Stephen didn’t start taking drugs for about four more years, so I’m not sure what we knew or didn’t about that song in 1973.
I don’t think I understood the oblique references, so I’ll go with Clapton’s “Cocaine,” or possibly the Dead song, what’s it called, “Casey Jones?” both of which were staples on the radio at the time.
How about Eight Miles High?
Whackin’ yer pud as a drug:
“Pink Thing,” XTC
More pud-whackin’:
“My Best Friend,” Jellyfish
Now you’re talking, Hrrundi.
Rosie by Jackson Brown
LSw/D and White Rabbit (tied to “Go Ask Alice”)
“Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”
I remember hearing that my favorite song at the time (Another One Bites The Dust, by Queen) could be played backwards and you would hear “fun to Smoke marijuana” I about ruined my record playing this (and had basically no idea what marijuana was at age 11)
It may have been “Pass the Dutchie” for some.
Good call, cher.
Good story, jungleland2.
I think maybe some of the Velvet Underground’s songs — like say Heroin, White Light/White Heat, or Waiting For My man — might be about drugs, but who can claim that they were familiar with these songs when they were current?
And don’t forget this toker’s klassic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3ecDYxOkg
Welk was known to kick back with a little Krakow Red.
“The Cuervo Gold, The Fine Columbian” in Steely Dan’s Hey 19, I had no idea what either were in 1980
Surprised there hasn’t been a Space Oddity mention yet.
White Christmas, Bing Crosby
Cocaine. Jackson Browne. No mystery there.
“White Lines” – Grandmaster Flash
“Mary Jane” – Rick James & the Stone City Band
Get it????