Tokin' Songs

Subject: Tokin' Songs
From: Cluin
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 01:20 AM

And the subject inpiring conception of this thread: Songs dealing with or inspired by the burning rope...

Of course, there's Peter Rowan's Panama Red (also recorded by New Riders of the Purple Sage)

Brewer & Shipley's One Toke Over the Line

Hoyt Axton's Roll Yer Own



Let's pass it around.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Peace
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 01:23 AM

Damn near anything by Dr Hook and the Medicine Show.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Peace
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 01:25 AM

. . .not that I have ever tok-ed anything. I had a friend who did and he told me that he like to listen to Dr Hook and the Medicine Show when he had tok-ed up. See? I don't even know the name for whatever he was tok-ed-ing. BOO. I see you.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: open mike
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 02:07 AM

Quicksilver....What you gonna do about me...
Don't bogart that J**nt, my friend,
any various reggae tunes
Rollin', rollin' rollin' keep those doggies rollin'
well--i guess not exactly...about the subject,
but brings it to mind...
but weht about Arlo's "Chicken flyin' everywhere in the air---
flying in to Los Angeles...bringing in a couple of keys....
don't touch my bags if you please, mr. customs man."
or "Goin' to Acapulco to turn the golden key,
Henry keep your breaks on for this corner if you please"
Or how about "just give me weed, whites and wine,
and show me a sign, and i'll be willin' to be moving.."
now i will leave some for the others...anyone else got one?

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: open mike
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 02:12 AM

a D T search brings up these:
The Digitrad Results
0.7742 - SAUERKRAUT (Cleaning the Refrigerator)
0.7742 - OKIE FROM MUSCOGEE
0.7742 - IF (Dueling Paranoias)
0.7742 - DELIRIUM TREMENS
0.7742 - BANANA REPUBLICS
0.7742 - AMERICAN PIE--PROGRAM NOTES

\maybe not this one--but??
Green, green, it's green they say
on the far side of the hill,,,
Green green, i'm goin' away
to where the grass is greener still...

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: michaelr
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 02:14 AM

Yeah right, brucie. Uh-huh. Sure. We believe you.

Cluin -- dealing with are quite a few, such as:

"Legalize It" by Peter Tosh... and any number of reggae songs.

"Illegal Smile", John Prine.

"Rainy Day Women, 4:20", Bob Dylan.


inspired by -- jeez, could be thousands! Most of Donovan's, Cat Stevens', Garcia/Hunter's, two thirds of the people who wrote songs between, oh, 1965 and, oh, now... (those rappers are heavy on the blunts, dig?)

What were we talking about?

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Teresa
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 02:17 AM

The toyes "I smoke Two Joints

Dont forget "The free Mexican Air Force".

Teresa

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Peace
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 02:29 AM

And get a copy of "A Child's Garden of Grass." I think it's been re-released on CD. Worth listening to AFTER tok-ed-ing. Have lots of Sara Lee cakes or jujubes or chips or corndogs or peanut butter or barbeque chickens or oranges or cashews or pizzas or pomegranets or avocados or fish sticks or spaghetti or raviolis in the can or better still in a bowl and a can opener or a twelve course meal delivered to your place just as you are about to turn the bath water off because you notice seven inches of water on the floor because you've been running the tub for over two hours or chocolate bars or spinach.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Peace
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 02:37 AM

suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhsssssssssssshhhhhhhssssssssss. Haw haw.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Peace
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 02:38 AM

Hey man, it's like, ha ha--did you like HEAR that NOTE MAN? Like WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 02:58 AM

Narc, narc, Brucie.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Teresa
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 03:03 AM

Brucie, I wish I could, like, show you the sound that came out of my computer with that splash. Whooooooooooa!   hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

I wish I could toke more, man, but I get panic attacks. Bummer. Real scary, so I don't do it no more. Sometimes I'll eat some ganja-food, though.

Teresa

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Peace
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 03:03 AM

FLUSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Ah, man, like, you were KIDDing man. Bummer.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 06:01 AM

I like to eat bananas
cause they've got no bones
I like marijuana
cause it gets me st

Sh*t I've forgotten the words, wheres me pipe that'll help. Anyway that was Welsh band Man. Man were great, man. They may still be touring. I think I saw them lots of times but I might have just gone out for a bit and come back in. anyway it was ages ago they're probably as old as folkies now so I don't Know. And my vapouriser needs cleaned and the gunk on it is far to potent to throw away but it tastes foul but not as foul as the time I had to smoke the dog hair man that was almost as gross as having to suck my sock for days cause I stood in the hash oil

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST,davtenova
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 06:03 AM

sorry that was me guesting on mudcat207.103.108.99.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST,roger the dodger
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 08:04 AM

OK, what the feck does ' tokin ' meam

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST,JennyO
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 08:30 AM

Well, there's Micca's song, "The Hash my Father Scored". Most of it was in the DT, but I have taken the liberty of adding his recently written new verse. I hope it's correct as I'm doing it from memory. It's in a PM, but you can't get to PM's from the back door. If I find it's slightly wrong later, I'll post the verse again:

THE HASH MY FATHER SCORED

Michael (Micca) Patterson (tune - The Sash my Father Wore)

It was gold and it was beautiful and it cost 2 pence a gram
He scored it on the ferry coming back from Amsterdam
He said it's just like Lebanese from the bygone days of yore
And when I can I like to smoke the hash my father scored

That green grass and resin so fine
It gives you a feeling divine
It would raise both the dying and the living
That green grass and resin so fine.

When my father died he left to me his house and all his tin
I opened the Good book and found a Kilo stashed within
And now when I'm unhappy and sometimes when I'm bored
I light a spliff in memory of the hash my father scored

That green grass and resin so fine
It gives you a feeling divine
It would raise both the dying and the living
That green grass and resin so fine.

But now the years have passed and gone and all that hash has flown
You can't get stuff like that these days I've even tried home-grown
But I can still remember how upward I have soared
Outflying British Airways on the hash my father scored

That green grass and resin so fine
It gives you a feeling divine
It would raise both the dying and the living
That green grass and resin so fine.

And now to bring things up to date they've made the hash class C
It's no more harmful now they say than a good strong cup of tea
So we'll light a joint in memory and maybe bye and bye,
They'll come to know that hash is nature's way of saying "high"!

That green grass and resin so fine
In liquorice rizla divine
It would raise both the dying and the living
That green grass and resin so fine.

It was gold and it was beautiful and it cost 2 pence a gram
He scored it on the ferry coming back from Amsterdam
He said it's just like Lebanese from the bygone days of yore
And when I can I like to smoke the hash my father scored

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST,Sleepless Dad
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 01:25 PM

"And I'm down to seeds and stems again too"

What did the Deadhead say when he ran out of pot ?
"Man - This band sucks!!"

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST,PoppaGator
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 01:35 PM

"If You'se A Viper" ~ I first heard this from Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band, but I know it's an older song, I believe one of Fats Waller's(?).

Kermit Ruffins and the Barbeque Swingers are reseponsible for an excellent, more recent, and more grammatically correct recording of "If You're A Viper" on one of their CDs. Poet/revolutionary John Sinclair has also recorded this song in his characteristic speak/singing style.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST,PoppaGator
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 05:57 PM

Kermit Ruffins, spiritual heir to Louis Armstrong, actually does a number of reefer songs, some of his own composition, in addition to the classic "Viper" ~ "Hide the Reefer [Here Comes the Creeper]" and "Smokin' with Some Barbeque" are just two that come to mind.

I've heard it said that he has included one such piece on each of his CDs, but that may be an exaggeration.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 06:09 PM

Tom Paxton's Talking Vietnam Potluck Blues.

John Martyn's Sugar Lump, thought that's acutally about dropping acid.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Drayman
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 06:15 PM

I forget the name of the cats who wrote this song, and there's a lot of verses, but one of them goes:

Them boys from Oklahoma roll their joints all wrong,
They're way too skinny, and they're much too long.
I ain't no holly roller, so I just smoke a bong--
Them boys from Oklahoma roll their joints all wrong.


These guy are a country act, I forget who though. Can anybody help me remember?

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: sixtieschick
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 06:16 PM

"Acapulco Gold" made the Top Forty until some station manager figured out it wasn't about some old folks taking a vacation. Then there's the line from "Give Me a Pigfoot," as sung by Bessie Smith:

Give me a reefer and a bottle of gin.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Drayman
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 06:16 PM

Oh, and what about ol' Johnny Cash:

On a Sunday mornin' sidewalk,
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned...


Yup, the Man in Black liked some Green, too.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Lanfranc
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 07:16 PM

Tom Paxton's "Out behind the gypsy's"...

"Out behind the gypsy's drinking someone's wine
Out behind the gypsy's drinking someone's wine,
Someone passed a smoke around, just a friendly toke around
I do declare we all felt fine."

Great song, played IIRR in double dropped D (DADGBD) tuning.

Alan

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: pdq
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 07:29 PM

Last time I heard Peppermint Harris's "I Got Loaded" it sounded more like a tokin' song than a drinkin' song.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Peace
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 08:04 PM

Like,

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 08:41 PM

Tom Lehrer's Be Prepared isn't exactly a tokin' song,
but it does have this:

Keep those reefers hidden where you're sure they will not be found
And be careful not to smoke them when the scoutmaster's around
For he only will insist that they be shared
Be prepared!

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: bobad
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 08:53 PM

How about Jesse Winchester's "Twigs and Seeds".

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: goodbar
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 09:01 PM

buddy holly "everyday"

just a good song me and my buds like to listen to before we light up. :D

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 09:26 PM

My favorite, though in the jazz idiom (and sounding not unlike a classical art song) Smoking Reefers by Larry Adler, recorded April 1936
It's the kinda stuff that dreams are made of
It's the stuff the white folks are afraid of
Rereleased on LP circa 1970 by Stash Records--Tea Pad Songs Volume Two ST104. See also ST100 Reefer Songs; ST102 Pot, Spoon, Pipe, and Jug; ST103 Tea Pad Songs Volume One. (ST101 is Copulatin' Blues, but that would be a different thread.)

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 10:17 PM

John Hartford's "Granny Wontcha Smoke"

Steppenwolf's "Don't Step on the Grass, Sam" (also done by Gov't Mule)

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Davetnova
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 03:29 AM

Pot,spoon, pipe and jug - I've been tryung to remember the name of that album for ages.(It's not the drugs I'm just getting old) That was the one with Reefer Man.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Davetnova
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 03:30 AM

And Have a Whiff on Me.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Cluin
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 03:33 AM

Jim Stafford's Wildwood Weed

Stephen Stills' Treetop Flyer

Steve Earle's Copperhead Road

Subject: Lyr Add: SHANTY (Jonathan Edwards)
From: GUEST,munchie
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 02:00 PM

SHANTY aka THE FRIDAY SONG
Jonathan Edwards


Gonna sit down in the kitchen and fix me something good to eat
and make my head a little high and make this whole day complete
cuz we gonna lay around the shanty mama and put a good buzz on.

Well pass it to me baby, pass it to me slow
we'll take time out to smile a little before we let it go
cuz we gonna lay around the shanty mama and put a good buzz on.

Well there ain't nothin' to do and there's always room for more
fill it, light it, shut up and close the door
cuz we gonna lay around the shanty mama and put a good buzz on.

We gonna sit around the kitchen fix us somethin' good to eat
and make ourselves a little high and make the whole day complete
cuz we gonna lay around the shanty mama and put a good buzz on.

Ev'ry night and day (if I can help it)
We're gonna lay around the shanty momma, and put a good buzz on.


--------------------------------------------------
Also, Tom Petty ... "You Don't Know How it Feels"
(But let me get to the point.
        Let's roll another joint)


-they don't call me munchie for nothin'   :-)

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 02:27 PM

There are so many of these I can't possibly list 'em all!! "John Riley", for one. Bob Gibson did a very nice version of it with his banjo back about 1959 at the folk club in Chicago called the Gate Of Horn. That's the first brokin tokin song I ever heard I think.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Steve-o
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 04:12 PM

"Don't Bogard That Joint, My Friend" (from "Easy Rider") and "Illegal Smile" from John Prine!

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: PoppaGator
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 04:29 PM

I just heard the unmistakable voice of Muddy Waters on the radio, singing the praises of reefer. I missed the DJ's announcement of the song title, etc. Anyone know this one?

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: pdq
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 06:57 PM

We can't forget

"She Pawned Her Diamond for Some Gold" by Bob Frank

               for all you fans of KFAT

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Chris Green
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 07:03 PM

Off on a tangent, how about Tom Lehrer's "The Old Dope Peddler"?

When the shades of night are falling
Comes a fellow everyone knows
It's the old dope peddler
Spreading joy wherever he goes

Ev'ry evening you will find him
Around our neighborhood
It's the old dope peddler
Doing well by doing good

He gives the kids free samples
Because he knows full well
That today's young innocent faces
Will be tomorrow's clientele

Here's a cure for all your troubles
Here's an end to all distress
It's the old dope peddler
With his powdered happiness

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 07:56 PM

Oz Mudcatter Joy's love and partner, Hidebrand, wrote one that Steve Goodman recorded on the GATHERING AT THE EARL OF OLD TOWN compilation album in the early 60s. Can't remember the title but it was about a drug bust in Chicago by a cop he called Tony Spumoni in the song---but it was really a notorious narc named Tony Rigoni. We've talked about it before in these threads.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: s6k
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 08:25 PM

bob marley - natural mystic

bob marley - easy skankin (excuse me while i light my spliff!)

cypress hill - i want to get high

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Auggie
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 08:35 PM

Art-
Greg's song was the Chicago Bust Rag

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 08:58 PM

The Jass label puts out a CD called "Reefer Songs" that feature all these jazz and blues bands and artists from the 20s thru the 40s that recorded stuff about pot--much of the material was released after pot was made illegal in '37.

These include Cab's "The Man from Harlem" which I understand is about Mezz Mezzrow who supposedly sold the best pot in Harlem. Another is Bob Howard's "If You're a Viper." Waller's version is included under a different title. Barney Bigard's "Sweet Marijuana Brown" is included as is Buster Bailey's "Light Up." All sorts of great titles:

"The G Man Got the T Man," "All the Jive is Gone," "Texas Tea Party," "Here Come the Man With the Jive" and "Save the Roach For Me."

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: JennyO
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 10:10 PM

I just checked Micca's words for the new verse and last chorus of "The Hash my Father Scored". I was close, but for the sake of accuracy, here they are again, from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

But now to come right up to date, They've made the Hash "Class C"
It's no more harmful now they say than a good strong cup of tea
and we'll smoke a joint to celebrate and maybe bye and bye
they'll come to know that Hash is natures way of saying "High!!
      
That brown crumbly resin so fine
In Liquorice Rizla, divine
It would raise both the dying and the living
That green grass and resin so fine

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Peace
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 10:24 PM

All we need's the song . . . .

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: michaelr
Date: 10 Feb 05 - 10:47 PM

???

Crosby, Stills & Nash, "Pre-Road Downs":

"Be sure to hide the roaches"


"Sunday Morning Sidewalk" is a Kris Kristofferson song.

Cheeers, (hssssssss...)
Michael

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: JennyO
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 12:17 AM

My friend Rhymin' Simon sings a few of these. As well as Micca's Hash song, he does this one, with these, or similar words:

You'se a Viper - Stuff Smith and his Onyx Club Boys

Dreamed about a reefer five feet long.
Mighty Mezz, but not too strong.
You'll be high but not for long
If you're a viper.
I'm the king of everything.
I've got to be high before I can swing.
Light a tea and let it be
If you're a viper.

When your throat get dry you know you're high
Everything is dandy
Truck on down to the candy store
Bust your konk on peppermint candy

Then you know that you're body's spent.
You don't care if you don't pay rent.
Sky is high and so am I
If you're a viper.


Then there's Simon's rendition of "Clancy of the Party Cone", which is a parody of the Australian poem, "Clancy of the Overflow". I don't know who wrote it (it wasn't him), and Simon does not seem to be forthcoming with the words, so I only know fragments from memory. I've never tried to write it down before, so actually I'm surprised I know this much, considering...

Something along these lines -

I had written him a letter, which I had for want of better
Pot, sent to where I met him up in Queensland long ago
He had seedlings when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him
Drugs on tick, in hopes of Purple - Clancy of the Party Cone

And an answer came directed, in a wrapping unexpected
And the package was delivered by a hippy in a car
'Twas his growin' mate who sent it, off his face, non compos mentis
"Clancy's gone to Queensland growing, and he sent this bloody jar."

In my wild and spastic fancy, visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a growin' in the Daintree where the 10 foot colas grow
With the resin slowly drippin', Clancy reels around 'em trippin'
For the grower's life has pleasures average smokers do not know.

And his growing(?) friends all meet him, with their 10 inch spliffs to greet him
And he O D's on the THC and it sets him on his arse
And he sees the vision splendid of the thousand plants he's tended
And at night the wondrous glory of the garbage bags of grass!

Now I'm sitting in my dingy little kitchen where a stingy
Mix of shade leaf struggles feebly to get me off it all
And the foetid air and pithy smell of kif grown in the city
Through the open window floating spreads its foulness over all.

And instead of mellow scissors, the mullamatic whizzes
?????????????????????????????????????????????
And the traffic uninvited - oh, the drug squad's just been sighted
????????????????????????? just to bust me for a seed!

And the city dealers daunt me, and their shitty deals they haunt me
As they ????????? and the taxman always takes
With their ???? thin and weedy, and their heads all stunted, seedy
For townsfolk have no time to grow the dope(?) they'd like to smoke.

And I somehow rather fancy, that I'd like to bong with Clancy
Like to take a turn at growing where the kilos come and go
While he faced the round(?) eternal, of the hash block, and the purple
But I doubt he'd smoke the shade leaf - Clancy of the Party Cone.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:04 PM

The 1933 movie International House starring among others W. C. Fields includes a great segment with Cab Calloway singing Reefer Man.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Peace
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:06 PM

A must-see movie from the late 40s or early 50s: "Reefer Madness." It IS a hoot.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Micca
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:13 PM

From a song that Morty sings (as well as I can remember the words)
" So Pass me the papers and a cigarette
Principles are wonderful but they dont make very good pets
and well ignore our conscience and stifle regrets
and we'll all get stoned and forget"
Steve Messenger

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Cluin
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:28 PM

A line from Paul Simon's Late in the Evening:

"I stepped outside and smoked myself a jay"

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: bobad
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 09:45 PM

One of my favorites is "Pakalolo' by the late great Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Cluin
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 11:09 PM

Hoyt Axton's No No Song, which Ringo had a hit with when he covered it in `75.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 12:32 AM

Even cleancut John Denver got into the act:
"Friends around the campfire, and everybody's high..."

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Cluin
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 12:42 AM

Yeah, and another JD song, Poems, Prayers and Promises:

"While my friends and my old lady sit and pass the pipe around..."

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: Cluin
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 10:10 PM

One from Snoop Dogg:

Rollin' down the street,
smokin' Indo,
sippin' on gin and juice
Laid back
With my mind on my money and my money on my mind

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 10:44 PM

All this and no mention of "Marijuana" by the Fugs.

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 12:43 AM

David Peel & the Lower East Side............

Subject: RE: Tokin' Songs
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 07:01 PM

The Dillard Bros. and John Hartford did TWO HITS AND THE JOINT TURNED BROWN on their Glitter Grass album.
The Good Bros. had a tune(I think it was called THE RABBIT) about a rabbit who got into their garden and got stoned on their crop.
They also used to sing acappella in beautiful three part harmony:

Amazing grass, how sweet the smell,
That stoned a wretch like me.
I once was straight, but now I'm STONED.
So stoned that I can't see.