Gnarly weed songs you need to hear to believe

“SMOKE TWO JOINTS” by Sublime (1992)

I mentioned that one of the songs on Team Unaffiliated is actually a cover of a reggae tune. This is it. Bradley Nowell and Sublime covered The Toyes original, but did several things to make it a bit less reggae, though that rhythm still remains.

The first thing they did was tack on an opening movie clip from Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (screenplay by Roger Ebert) which breathlessly warns against the perversion that is marijuana. Thus Bradley’s opening lines – “I smoke two joints in the morning – I smoke two at night…” are a pretty clear FU to old-fashioned societal wisdom. Later, they will add some psychedelic guitar riffs and grungy bass that further pull this out of the world of reggae. For the record, in the first verse, Bradley smokes 16 joints. I did the math.

“ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE” by Brewer & Shipley (1970)

Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley put out some very pretty folk rock in the early 1970s, but they would be mostly forgotten in history if not for this song and its rather bizarre history. It’s a simple tune with pretty harmony and a catchy chorus that goes – as you probably already know – “One toke over the line, Sweet Jesus – One toke ever the line.”

The references to Jesus and later to Mary apparently convinced some people that it was primarily concerned with the spiritual salvation offered by religion – and that led to the single greatest moment in the history of the Lawrence Welk TV show.

In 1971, the epitome of wholesome entertainment featured the ultra-clean-cut couple Gail Farrell and Dick Dale singing this song on the air. Everyone under 40 knew what they were singing about. Everyone older than that – it depends. Anyway, it made for some great television. Oh, and it also may or may not have led Vice President Spiro Agnew (a couple of years before he resigned in disgrace) to rail against the song, and landed Brewer & Shipley on Richard Nixon’s famous enemies list. Not bad for a little weed song.