# Best pro-drug message in rock **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 1, 2006, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841 "2006-08-01T04:36:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/21 "2006-08-01T15:58:39Z")
[Also exclude the Eric Clapton song.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine_%28song%29) ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/22 "2006-08-01T16:01:54Z")
About 3/5’s of all Steely Dan songs. About 1/5 are anti-drug, and the rest are entirely some intellectual wankfest (entirely, as opposed to the rest of the oeurve which is only partially an intellectual wankfest ;)) ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/23 "2006-08-01T16:03:20Z")
But add “Bales of Cocaine” by Reverend Horton Heat. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/24 "2006-08-01T17:44:30Z")
Asleep at the Wheel “Am I High”. I can’t find lyrics, seems like The Bloodhound Gang has a song titled “Asleep at the Wheel” and that’s swamping the search. “Am I high? My mouth’s so dry I just laugh until I cry, lord Am I high?” ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/25 "2006-08-01T18:07:24Z")
Rick Derringer’s _Rock and Roll Hootchie Coo_ has the line: “gettin high all the time, hope you all are too” ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/26 "2006-08-01T18:08:57Z")
I dunno if it’s a pro- or anti-drug song, but Lou Reed’s performance of “Heroin” on \*Rock n’ Roll Animal \* is THE drug song of all time. For best pro-drug song, I second DtC’s nomination of “White Rabbit.” For best anti-drug song, I’ll stick with Steppenwolf’s “Snow Blind Friend” already mentioned in another thread. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/27 "2006-08-01T19:34:12Z")
Funny thing you should start this thread; all during my lunch hour, for some reason, I was singing: _The Cuervo Gold, the fine Columbian, make tonight a wonderful thing . . ._ by, of course, _Steely Dan_ ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/28 "2006-08-01T19:56:13Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] The greatest pro-drug song ever: Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys – [Strike a Match and Light Another.](http://fhapgood.fastmail.fm/masscann/strike_a_match.txt) (Written by Jay “Theme for Ken Burns’s The Civil War” Ungar.) [/QUOTE] Great choice, but I think it ties for the “Best Rock-Bluegrass Fusion Dope Song” crown with “Henry” by New Riders of the Purple Sage. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/29 "2006-08-01T20:40:55Z")
[QUOTE=fetus] [Also exclude the Eric Clapton song.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine_%28song%29) [/QUOTE] OK, this is not without interest. From Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > Contrary to popular belief, “Cocaine” is an anti-drug song. Eric Clapton: “It’s no good to write a deliberate anti-drug song and hope that it will catch. Because the general thing is that people will be upset by that. It would disturb them to have someone else shoving something down their throat. So the best thing to do is offer something that seems ambiguous — that on study or on reflection actually can be seen to be ‘anti’— which the song “Cocaine” is actually an anti-cocaine song. If you study it or look at it with a little bit of thought… from a distance… or as it goes by… it just sounds like a song about cocaine. But in actual fact, it is quite cleverly anti-cocaine.” (From The Best of Everything Show, with Dan Neer). Over the years, Clapton has added the lyrics ‘that dirty cocaine’ in live shows to underline the anti-drug message of the song, but also to presumably show his present antipathy to cocaine use. > > Clapton has also commented, “…that’s an anti-drug-song. The fans only listen to the refrain: ‘She don’t lie, she don’t lie, cocaine.’ But it says, ‘If you wanna get down, down on the ground, cocaine.’ It’s sad how young people destroy themselves with drugs. I hate listening to my old records, which I did stoned or drunk. (From Stern magazine, Germany, 1998) From [this source](http://www.jambase.com/headsup.asp?storyID=8653&disp=all) the songwriter JJ Cale has this to say about the song: > [@](#): > > Watching the DVD as Clapton dissects the genius of Cale’s super-hit, “Cocaine,” he contemplates the lyrics and tries to determine if the song is slightly negative in connotation or slightly positive or maybe totally ambivalent. When I ask Cale to explain the mindset he was in when he wrote the classic track, he says, “I never was a cocaine user. A lot of my friends were, of course all my friends were musicians. I was just trying to write something. It was a subject matter, and when you’re a songwriter, number one before you write the hook or the lyrics or anything you go, ‘What the hell is the song about?’ So I went, well nobody has written anything about cocaine. And then I tried to be not positive or negative about it either way. I think Clapton was pretty much right in detecting some negativity; I put some lines in. ‘Well if you take cocaine, you better watch out.’ And there were also some lines in there like ‘Well here’s cocaine, you can have some fun with that.’ And that’s sorta the way drugs are.” It would seem the song is neither for nor against cocaine. It is just a song about cocaine. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/30 "2006-08-01T20:46:18Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] OK, this is not without interest. From Wikipedia: From [this source](http://www.jambase.com/headsup.asp?storyID=8653&disp=all) the songwriter JJ Cale has this to say about the song: It would seem the song is neither for nor against cocaine. It is just a song about cocaine. [/QUOTE] I believe that it was just a song about cocaine when it was written, but clearly Clapton’s intent was for it to be an anti-drug song, therefore his version doesn’t belong in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/31 "2006-08-01T21:23:21Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Feed your head! Feed your head! [/QUOTE] One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, and the ones that mother gives you don’t do anything at all. 🙂 Jefferson Airplane, White Rabbit. For the uninitiated. ---
**Author:** ![Talon\_Karrde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/32 "2006-08-01T21:25:23Z")
[QUOTE=betenoir] I was going to mention in the other thread that I didn’t think Heroin by Lou Reed counted as anti drug…hell, it was one of the reasons I tried it (I’ve given it up since! But it was a Perfect Day.) [/QUOTE] He intended the song to be neither for or against heroin. It’s more observational. It’s worth noting that Lou Reed wrote that song when he was in college; he didn’t ever use heroin until later. ---
**Author:** ![yelimS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/54ee81/32.png) [@yelimS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yelimS)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/33 "2006-08-01T21:34:02Z")
Nowhere near the best “song” on the subject, but I’ve always been amazed by Green Velvet’s La La Land Something 'bout those little pills, unreal, the thrill, they yield, until, they kill, a mill-ion brain cells. I think I’d choose Steely Dan - Time Out Of Mind for a favorite, though. ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/34 "2006-08-01T22:15:04Z")
Although Quinn the Eskimo by Bob Dylan is supposed to be just about a character in a movie he saw, I still think it is about heroin, and a very positive song about heroin. I mean, come on: “I like to go just like the rest, I like my sugar sweet.” Not to mention the lyrics are the kind of connections only someone high on something would come up with. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/35 "2006-08-01T22:21:13Z")
Rush, “A Passage to Bangkok”. There’s quite a few drugs sampled in that song. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2006, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/36 "2006-08-01T23:24:39Z")
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a great advert for LSD. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/37 "2006-08-02T02:11:05Z")
No, “Acid Commercial” by Country Joe and the Fish is a great advert for LSD. Eat flowers and kiss babies… ---
**Author:** ![racer72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/racer72/32/3075_2.png) [@racer72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racer72)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/38 "2006-08-02T02:18:01Z")
Styx had one of the best opening numbers for concerts of any group. Light up, everybody Join us in this celebration Light up and be happy Sweet, sweet sounds will fill the air By the time this song ended the arena was full of smoke. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/39 "2006-08-02T02:33:47Z")
[QUOTE=Bippy the Beardless] Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a great advert for LSD. [/QUOTE] Not intentionally. Rent a video of [_Imagine._](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0095360/) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2006, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841/40 "2006-08-02T02:38:01Z")
Another vote for _White Rabbit_. It is rumored that when in her cups, Grace Slick tried to reach through a fan’s nose and pull out his brain. Wow. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-pro-drug-message-in-rock/366841.md?page=3)