Origins: One Toke Over The Line

Subject: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Jason Xion Wang
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 09:42 AM

I was told that this song is about drug use and people high on marijuana. Could anybody please provide me more details about this song? When did people know that this song is about drug? And who have sung this song besides the original singer?

Sorry for my poor English...

Thanks,
Jason

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Peace
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 10:39 AM

Brewer and Shipley did the song. It was a hit--big time--in Canada in the very early 1970s. The remark "high on marijuana"--the term 'toke' is used almost exclusively for inhaling the smoke from a joint which is a term for a marijuana cigarette.


I read that stuff in a book.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Cool Beans
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 11:20 AM

It was also a big hit in the US where "one toke over the line" was widely understood to mean the puff (toke) of marijuana that puts you over the line from being sober to being high.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 11:39 AM

Here is video of Brewer and Shipley relating how their song was misinterpreted by Lawrence Welk.

And now for the other version

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 07:02 PM

A fairly big hit in some circles in Aus too... :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Peace
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 07:11 PM

LOL--no doubt . . . .

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 07:52 PM

I'll always associate this song with the Grateful Dead. Ive heard of Brewer and Shipley, but didn't know anything about them. The Brewer & Shipley Website is worth a look.


-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: gnu
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 07:57 PM

Now, two.. well... let me tell ya... wha?

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Peace
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:03 PM

Garcia played steel on that recording by B and S.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:04 PM

I much prefer the Welk version. That lovely young couple standing together blissfully and awaiting their train, token in hand. They are off on a journey together, a journey of life, a journey of love. In the those troubled times of youth its is wonderful to see two people so deeply committed. A really inspirational piece of work and I am proud to see it on this website.


Spaw

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Peace
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:07 PM

ARTIST: Brewer and Shipley
TITLE: One Toke Over the Line
Lyrics and Chords


{Refrain}
One toke over the line, sweet Jesus, one toke over the line
Sittin' downtown in a railway station, one toke over the line
Waitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary
Hoping that the train is on time
Sittin' downtown in a railway station, one toke over the line

/ C - - - F - C - / C C/B Am D9 F G C - / :

Who do you love, I hope it's me
I've been changing, as you can plainly see
I felt the joy and I learned about the pain that my mama said
If I should choose to make it part of me
Would surely strike me dead, and now I'm

/ C - - - F - C - / C - D9 - F - G - / C - - - F - C - /
    / C Am D9 F G7 - C - /

{Refrain}

I sail away, a country mile
And now I'm returning, and showing off my smile
I met all the girls and I loved myself a few, and to my surprise
Like everything else that I've been through
They opened up my eyes, and now I'm

{Refrain}

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:10 PM

I have a small shrine in my home with pictures and framed inspirational stories as well as the mandatory hippie on a stick as the focal point. I am going to frame these wonderful lyrics as a remembrance of the love we can all share.


Spaw

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: pdq
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:12 PM

This song is on a Brewer & Shipley album called Tarkio. Jerry Garcia plays the pedal steel on only one song: "Oh Mommy".

Jerry was having fun with his new toy which he started using for New Riders of the Purple Sage concerts in 1968 or maybe 1969.

Jerry's pedal steel work is heard on Crosby, Stills and Nash's genius work "Teach Your Children".

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Melissa
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:15 PM

I went to college in the Tarkio of 'Tarkio Road'..not that it has anything to do with anything, but I like to mention it whenever I get a chance.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Peace
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:31 PM

Danged if y'ain't right, pdq. (Not surprising though.) Mea culpa. Sack cloth and ashes. Sorry.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Peace
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:35 PM

Bobert: the only people who know where the edge really is have already gone over. (Hunter Thompson ?)

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:47 PM

... and if you can remember it, you weren't really there... :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Peace
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:48 PM

Remember what?

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Smokey.
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:54 PM

Degenerate hippies, the lot of you.
I'm jolly glad we don't have that sort of thing over here in Blighty.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Peace
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 08:58 PM

Ya forgot, didn't ya?!

AND, remember "Culpeper's Complete Herbal".

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Smokey.
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 09:02 PM

Nice hat, man..

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Peace
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 09:05 PM

"HEMP

This is so well known to every good housewife in the country, that I shall not need to write any description of it.

Time. It is sown in the very end of March, or beginning of April, and is ripe in August or September.

Government and virtues. It is a plant of Saturn, and good for something else, you see, than to make halters only. The seed of Hemp consumes wind, and by too much use thereof disperses it so much that it dries up the natural seed for procreation; yet, being boiled in milk and taken, helps such as have a hot dry cough. The Dutch make an emulsion out of the seed, and give it with good success to those that have the jaundice, especially in the beginning of the disease, if there be no ague accompanying it, for it opens obstructions of the gall, and causes digestion of choler. The emulsion or decoction of the seed stays lasks and continual fluxes, eases the cholic, and allays the troublesome humours in the bowels, and stays bleeding at the mouth, nose, or other places, some of the leaves, being fried with the blood of them that bleed, and so given them to eat. It is held very good to kill the worms in men or beasts; and the juice dropped into the ears kills worms in them; and draws forth earwigs, or other living creatures gotten into them. The decoction of the root allays inflammations of the head, or any other parts: the herb itself, or the distilled water thereof doth the like. The decoction of the root eases the pains of the gout, the hard humours of knots in the joints, the pains and shrinking of the sinews, and the pains of the hips. The fresh juice mixed with a little oil and butter, is good for any place that hath been burnt with fire, being thereto applied."

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Peace
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 09:09 PM

If I remember correctly, there was a small addition footnoted to that page that read something like "Scottish bagpipe players made reeds for their instruments [from the plant] and people found it quaint that they also smoked the leaves."

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Peace
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 09:14 PM

"The reported beneficial qualities of cannabis as a medicine have been known for centuries. Medicinal cannabis was first written about by the Ancient Chinese in Sheen Nung's Pen Ts'ao in 2737BC. The Roman surgeon Dioscorides also praised its medicinal virtues in 70AD whilst the English herbalist Culpeper wrote about it in the Complete Herbal and English Physician. Cannabis was taken widely for its medicinal value until the 20th Century when it was stigmatised and eventually banned."

from the www.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Smokey.
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 09:16 PM

Well you need a good imagination when you've only got nine loud notes and you're doing a gig in a skirt.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 09:40 PM

"the juice dropped into the ears ... draws forth earwigs"

... on the principle of "give me more" ? ...

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Smokey.
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 09:43 PM

It was the worms that worried me.. I've often wondered if I had worms in my head.. been trying to smoke them out for years..

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Jason Xion Wang
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 05:01 AM

Thank you all!

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Amos
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 12:10 PM

Lawrence Welk was a closet hippy. THis clip really captures the boundary region between the Fifties and the Sixties.


A

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 12:18 PM

that was disturbing, especially the pepto bismol pink outfits.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 12:57 PM

Great sendup, though.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: GUEST,You Can Call Me Al
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 04:50 PM

Ha! I have a brother who was thrown out of Tarkio, back in the era!

I loved this song, and just heard on XM the other day.

And thanks to whomever for mentioning New Riders, Garcia, et al.

[happy sigh]

Summer Breeze was another Top 40 radio fave of mine by B and S.

Their harmonies still sounded good, even in bad audio in a You Tube video. Nice to see them still out there.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: pdq
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 05:20 PM

Er, "Summe Breeze", uh, perhaps you are thinking of Seals & Crofts?

Great song. You could play it loud on a summers evening and the neighbors would not complain.

BTW, Seals & Crofts were both Baha'i faith and probably had nothing to do with drugs, unlike Brewer & Shipley.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: GUEST,You Can Call Me Al
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 05:22 PM

Sorry! Right you are. Must have been the drugs talking.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: GUEST,You Can Call Me Al
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 05:28 PM

Next thing, I s'pose you'll be telling me "Steve's Song" isn't by the Allman Brothers. ;)

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: pdq
Date: 06 Sep 09 - 05:48 PM

Uh, Steve's Song, er, Steve Cropper? Steve Stills?

I don't know why, but this reminds me of trying to convince somebody that John Mark and Johnny Almond were different people who called their group Mark-Almond. He went right back to saying that the record was by a guy named Mark. Mark Almond.

BTW, most of the pedal steel on B & S records was Red Rhodes who was a favorite of folk-rock types recording in SoCal including James Taylor.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: GUEST,You Can Call Me Al
Date: 07 Sep 09 - 11:13 AM

Steve's Song, if I'm not mistaken again, was Blues Project during the Al Kooper phase. Steve being Steve Katz. I always preferred that song to Flute Thing.

Subject: RE: Origins: One Toke Over The Line
From: pdq
Date: 07 Sep 09 - 11:44 AM

If you like Danny Kalb's guitar work with The Blues Project, look up some of his other recordings with acoustic guitar.

Danny Kalb was a "folkie" before he was a "rocker".

He was on Phil Ochs' "All the News That's Fit to Sing" and Dave Van Ronk's "Ragtime Jug Stompers" before he went electric.

It's hard to find, but the other members of the Van Ronk jug band recorded an instrumental album under the name "The Folk Stringers".

Even better, get his new album released this year. That way he gets some royalties. It has both his electric and acoustic guitar work plus his gruff singing. He is still "relevant".