When Gail Farrell and Dick Dale performed the Brewer and Shipley song, “One Toke Over the Line,” on The Lawrence Welk Show in 1971 they produced one of the funniest moments in the history of television, although the hilarity was unintentional.
Unbeknownst to the clean-cut singers, and to Welk—who introduced the song as a “modern spiritual”—the title was a reference to marijuana, specifically to smoking too much of it to function well. The sincerity and wholesomeness of Farrell and Dale as they sang about getting buzzed on weed made for some “high” irony.
References to pot have been appearing in song lyrics since the late-1920s. That's hardly surprising, given the longstanding connection between marijuana and musicians. In the 1920s and 1930s, weed was particularly associated with jazz musicians in places like New Orleans, Chicago and Harlem. Musicians viewed reefer, as they do now, as a way to relax or enhance creativity.
Louis Armstrong was an avid marijuana smoker. The title of his 1928 instrumental song, “Muggles,” was a jazz-era slang term for cannabis. Cab Calloway's "Reefer Man" (1932), was one of the first hit songs about a toker. Marijuana slang wasn't invented in the 1960s. During this era, songs often contained coded language—words like reefer, tea, gage, muggles, and viper. Jazz insiders and hipsters got it, but the censors didn't.
In 1943, when “viper” was an insider term for ”pot smoker,” Fats Waller released “Reefer Song,” his version of a song originally called “When You’se (sic) a Viper.” He sings about a “reefer five feet long” using lyrics like this: “You don't give a darn if you don't pay rent/'Cause the sky is high, so am I, yes, yes.” Some of the slang is indecipherable to the modern audience—e.g. ”bust your conk on peppermint candy” refers to getting high.
The “reefer song” trend died off around the mid-1940s after the inhibiting effects of federal anti-marijuana campaigns kicked in. In the 1950s, marijuana culture moved into Beat poetry, jazz circles, folk coffeehouses, and underground scenes. The explicit musical references to pot were dormant in that decade, but they'd emerge again in the mid-to-late 1960s.
The proliferation of marijuana references in music in the 1960s was a reflection of marijuana moving outside the limited confines of the jazz-world and the Beat/bohemian subculture and into the general counterculture, driven by the convergence of a number of social forces. In contrast to the coded, insider-jokey weed references of the 1930s and 40s, 1960s music took a more open, countercultural approach. The tone was moving from sly to defiant, although it wasn't until the 1970s that explicit marijuana references were found in song lyrics. At the time, grass was migrating into white middle-class youth culture, and the young wanted to celebrate its use rather than wink at it.
In 1966, Bob Dylan sang, on "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," “Everybody must get stoned.” Some interpreted this as a marijuana reference, which the songwriter always denied. In 1967, The Rainy Daze released "Acapulco Gold,” an unambiguous reference to a popular strain of weed at the time. In 1968, Fraternity of Man released "Don't Bogart Me," which contained these lyrics: "Don't bogart that joint, my friend, pass it over to me.” Artists such as The Association, Donovan, The Byrds, and Peter, Paul, and Mary also released songs at that time that some believed had marijuana references.
Musical artists were coy about their marijuana references in the 1960s, but in the 1970s this inhibition faded. Steve Miller’s 1973 smash hit, “The Joker,” was one of the most successful stoner songs of all time, with lyrics like this: “I'm a joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight toker.” Also in 1973, the New Riders of the Purple Sage released “Panama Red,” a reference to a potent (for those times) strain of cannabis popular in the 1970s. This witty song uses metaphor to turn Panama-grown pot into a mythical outlaw: “Panama red, Panama red/He'll steal your woman, then he'll rob your head.” Rob your head, as in get you high. In “Roll Another Number (For the Road)”—1975—Neil Young sings about rolling a joint before getting in his truck in a wistful farewell to the Woodstock era. Reggae artist Peter Tosh called for legalization of ganja in Jamaica in his 1976 song, “Legalize It,” which became an anthem for the movement.
With “Mary Jane” (1978), Rick James composed an ode to marijuana with lyrics like these: “I’m in love with Mary Jane/ I’m not the only one.” “If Mary wanna play around/I let her have her fun.” “She likes to spread her love/And turn your head around."
In 1978, Bob Marley released the most well-known version of his song, “Kaya,” a wake-and-bake ode to marijuana about getting out of bed on a rainy day and wanting a smoke some weed (kaya): “I feel so high I even touched the sky above the falling rain.”
Marijuana became central to the reggae musical spirit because of its connection to the Rastafarianism that emerged in the 1930s in Jamaica. It's the “holy herb” to the many reggae musicians who believe it helps them with spiritual reflection and building a sense of community during religious gatherings.
Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Burning Spear were all Rastafarians. Jamaican singer John Holt wasn't a Rastafarian, but in 1983 he released a powerful pro-marijuana protest song. “Police In Helicopter” was a militant reaction to the CIA and Jamaican police using crop dusters to defoliate marijuana fields. Its most memorable lyric is, “If you continue to burn up the herbs, we're going to burn down the cane fields.” Those are the same cane fields that, in the 18th-century Jamaican Maroon Wars, escaped slaves burned down to mess with the colonialists' rum profits.