If we’re talking iconic television moments from the golden age of rock & roll, you can have your Sullivan show Beatles. The shock of the Who literally doing a smashing version of “My Generation” on The Smothers Brothers was a pleasant little jolt. Fear bringing the mosh pit to the mainstream on SNL – nice.
But none of them can compete with the sheer audacity, the incongruity, the utter weirdness of that night in 1971 when a couple of fresh-faced kids from the American heartland covered a “modern spiritual” on The Lawrence Welk Show.
Now, there are a couple of things wrong with that last sentence. For starters, though he may have looked the part, the male half of the duo, Dick Dale, was no “kid.” He was in his mid-40s. Further afield from the truth, the song he and his partner Gail Farrell sang that night, was not exactly a modern spiritual.
The night the country’s most traditional TV show got high
The Lawrence Welk Show was a staple of middle American culture. In the pre-internet era, he helped popularize the variety show as a way viewers all across the land could sample a wide range of entertainment. And though his audience skewed heavily into the grandparent demographic, Welk did try to offer a little something for younger generations. That is what he was attempting on the night in question.
The two-minute performance began with Welk’s house accordionist, Myron Floren, finishing a number and thanking the audience. Then he went on…
“Now here’s an attractive couple, Gail Farrell, from Durand, Oklahoma, and Dick Dale from Algona, Iowa. Let’s listen to Gail and Dale and one of the newer songs.”
Something caught in Floren’s throat as he said Dale’s name, causing him to cough and offer a quick “excuse me” before finishing his intro. In subsequent years, it would be debated whether this was an honest blip, or a subliminal signal that Floren knew what he was saying was a load of … I can’t say it. Like the Lawrence Welk Show, we produce a family-friendly column.
Then Gail and Dale (not to be confused with that other Dick Dale, who was a rock guitar revolutionary) sang. They both wore white – a suit for him and a dress for her – with Dale’s (I suppose I should call him Dick but that didn’t rhyme and was just a little too suggestive for the show, so I will honor their custom) – anyway, as I was saying – Dale’s pink shirt and Gail’s blood red blouse offering a dash of drama.
He had her pinned against a tree on a studio-created country lane. They were both smiling from ear to ear.
“One toke over the line, Sweet Jesus
One toke over the line
Sittin’ downtown in a railway station
One toke over the line.”
Yep, in 1971, Gail and Dale went on ABC television and sang the Brewer & Shipley song “One Toke Over the Line,” which everyone in the country under the age of thirty knew was a song about weed.
Apparently, no one on the Welk show knew, unless you believe that story about the real reason Myron Floren could barely keep a straight face while doing the intro. The mentions of “Sweet Jesus” and "Sweet Mary” in the chorus were enough to convince those in charge that this was a sweet, peppy gospel tune.
It does kind of sound like one. Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley were a folk duo. Like Gail Farrell, Brewer grew up in Oklahoma. Shipley, who died a few weeks ago at the age of 84, was from Ohio. They each brought their middle American roots out to California and joined the folk rock movement of the mid-1960s.
Shipley said “One Toke…” was a novelty song for them, written after a harrowing marijuana-fueled experience. The message wasn’t exactly a secret. Spiro Agnew, the vice president who would resign in disgrace two years later, publicly named the duo as subversives and the federal government began pressuring mainstream media to blacklist the song. I know, it’s shocking to think that such a thing could have ever happened in the land of the free.
The government’s actions didn’t seem to hurt the song. It was a hit. Whether it had a negative impact on the duo’s career is harder to discern. “One Toke…” was a bit of an anomaly for them. They never had anything approaching its success.
At almost the exact same time Agnew was warning America about the dangers of the tune, Lawrence Welk, eager to appeal to a younger audience, was on the lookout for modern pop songs with the right message. Singing to Jesus and Mary seemed to fit the bill. Apparently, no one at the show knew what the word “toke” meant in the parlance of the times.
Gail and Dale sing it so enthusiastically. Gail, an all-American girl, looks directly into the camera while Dale, is angled slightly toward her, giving us a three-quarter profile. Her voice carries the day. He is mostly harmony. They are almost always together, except for the briefest of intertwining solo lines where Dale dips into his lower register.
The song opens with the “Sweet Jesus” chorus before getting to the first verse …
“Who do you love
I hope it’s me.”
Adorable.
Then they repeat the chorus, and repeat it again, this time with a key change. They save some fireworks for the finale, when Gail tees up Dale with a little wave to deliver a deep bass …
“Don’t you know that we’re …”
As part of an ever-so-slightly syncopated chorus. They liked that little flourish so much, they did it again as part of the big finish.
The arrangement conveniently omitted the second verse which would have required Dale to sing…
“I met all the girls and I loved myself a few…”
I doubt Gail would have appreciated that line, though I’m sure she would have kept right on smiling. Anyway, the fact that the second verse was cut suggests that somebody on the show listened to and understood at least part of the tenor of the song.
But the show’s iconic host apparently did not. At the end, Lawrence Welk uttered his immortal analysis…
“There you heard a modern spiritual by Gail and Dale.”
Mike Brewer died last December, and now Tom Shipley is gone as well. Welk, Floren, Agnew and Dale, they’ve all been gone for more than ten years.
Gail Farrell is the only prominent figure from that glorious moment in pop music history still with us. I can’t say I have kept up with her, but she appears to have continued to have a career in music as a singer and songwriter long after her time on the Welk Show.
I’ve never heard her comment on her most famous moment, but I’d like to think it makes her smile all these years later. That performance has certainly put a smile on countless faces in the intervening 50-plus years.