What songs from the 60s really are about acid trips or drugs?

[EinsteinsHund]

@Yllaria

The really, really incredible thing is that title. I had no idea the song wasn’t called “Everybody Must Get Stoned” until I went to look it up.
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35???

He must have been stoned.

@Nobody

From what I heard he wanted to call it “Everybody Must Get Stoned” but he was told that the record company wouldn’t allow it, so he was forced to change the title.

Guess what the Rainy Day Women stand for…

[Ukulele_Ike]

@Shearer

The Charlatans - Codeine

Written by Buffy Sainte-Marie. Also covered by Quicksilver Messenger Service and The Litter. But the Charlatans’ version is my favorite.

[blondebear]

@astorian

The Small Faces’ “Itchycoo Park” sure sounds like it’s about playing hooky from school and going off to smoke some weed in the park.

And their album “Odgens’ Nut Gone Flake”…that wasn’t flake *tobacco *they were referring to!

[drad_dog]

@EinsteinsHund

Guess what the Rainy Day Women stand for…

did I miss something? What do they stand for?

[Yllaria]

@Nobody

From what I heard he wanted to call it “Everybody Must Get Stoned” but he was told that the record company wouldn’t allow it, so he was forced to change the title.

OK. That makes some sense. It’s a way of saying Everybody Must Get Stoned without the record company seeing that it says Everybody Must Get Stoned.

@EinsteinsHund

Guess what the Rainy Day Women stand for…

@drad_dog

did I miss something? What do they stand for?

#12 & 35?

[drad_dog]

That makes sense?

[Gyrate]

@Hilarity_N.Suze

You have to look for certain key words. SNOW for instance means cocaine; HORSE means heroin. “Grandmother” = the pusher or drug dealer. “Over the river”=Mexico, where a lot of drugs are procured. “Through the woods” – directions, obviously means some kind of trip. Etc.

This got the Osmonds (the Osmonds!) into trouble later when some folks assumed their rather weird song “Crazy Horses” was about heroin. It’s actually about cars.

[alted315]

Lake Shore Drive by ?, Alliota & Hayes you can say it’s about the famous Chicago thoroughfare but ithas the line Trippin’ along on LSD. Your Honor, I rest my case.

[alted315]

Some velvet morning by Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood. the most smacked out non rock and roll song I’ve ever heard

[drad_dog]

@kayaker

Yes!

Brother Tosh had a bug up his ass about right-turn-on-red, which was not legal in Jamaica prior to Tosh’s campaign.

He said it was good for Glaucoma in the song. That’s not right on red is it?

[Bridget_Burke]

Kenny Rogers & The First Edition had a hit with Mickey Newberry’s Just Dropped In.

Kenny’s brother Lelan ran Houston’s crazed International Artists record label. Most notorious on IA were the Thirteenth Floor Elevators; a few of whose songs were *not *about drugs, although every performance was drenched in acid. (They covered Dylan’s Baby Blue–a tender song about a relationship that had ended.) Most psychedelic? Slip Inside This House?

The first recorded use of “psychedelic” (or “psycho-delic”) was heard in the Holy Modal Rounders’ rendition of the old jazz/swing tune Hesitation Blues. Another drug-drenched group (they loved their speed!), their cover of Euphoria (by Robin Remailly) is also recommended.

Mickey Newberry, mentioned above, recommended that Houston folkies Townes Van Zandt & Guy Clark move to Nashville to become songwriters. Townes’s first “serious” song, written before he left town, was “Waitin’ Round to Die.” About Codeine. Let John Nova Lomax give some historical perspective:

On Sunday, April 17, the centerpiece story in the Arts and Entertainment section of The New York Times was a story about how, via the Slim Thug/Mike Jones/Paul Wall hit single “Still Tippin’,” Houston’s homegrown screw music was poised to take over the hip-hop nation. Screw – the slowed-down hip-hop invented by DJ Screw as music for people to enjoy while high on codeine cough syrup – was presented as something new, weird and uniquely Houstonian.

All of which it indubitably is – at least for hip-hop. But it’s mostly forgotten today that Screw was really the second Houston codeine aficionado to revolutionize a local scene. Back in the late '60s and early '70s, Townes Van Zandt turned Houston’s folk and country/Americana music on its head, thanks in no small part to his appreciation for the drug that is today called lean.

I told former Houstonian and Texas songwriting legend Guy Clark about screw music – which he had never heard of – and here is what he had to say: "Some things never change. You can always count on Houston’s codeine heads…

“As far back as Lightnin’, everybody in Houston had a codeine song,” Clark says. “It’s such a down drug, and Houston always seemed to have that down, kinda heroin vibe anyway.” (Clark rattles off a list of Houston musicians he knew to be heroin users, a list that neither Clark nor our lawyers would let us print.) “I was always around heroin and codeine – it was kind of pervading. Codeine kinda matches the weather down there.”

So, how about a couple of cheerful tunes? Bob Franks “She Pawned Her Diamond For Some Gold.” And the Rainy Daze “Acapulco Gold.”

Oh–surely the Legendary StarDust Cowboy counts? He recorded Paralyzed in Fort Worth, with a very young T-Bone Burnett on drums. Yes, it got some radio airplay.

Note: I can’t check the links well from here; lunchtime in the office. Hope they work!

[Crafter_Man]

Snowblind by Black Sabbath.

(Oops, sorry. 1970s…)

[EinsteinsHund]

@drad_dog

did I miss something? What do they stand for?

Sorry to come back so late, but I once read that the rainy day women were just joints, but that was a long time back, so I can’t really vouch for that and have no cite.

[Mister_Rik]

I’m pretty sure I’ve posted about this before, and the song is from the Seventies. I had heard the song on the radio countless times … and then, one day, when I was 42, I heard it again and suddenly realized that The Eagles’ Life in the Fast Lane is all about a cocaine bender.

[Bridget_Burke]

I neglected to add Townes van Zandt’s codeine song to my previous post; here it is.

More in the “spirit” of the OP–here’s Jefferson Airplane, Won’t You Try/Saturday Afternoon.

A personal favorite from Little Feat. Sing along on the chorus!

[MacCat]

@astorian

“Legend of a Mind” by the Moody Blues is a tribute to Timothy Leary and LSD trips.

Most of the album In Search Of The Lost Chord seems to be a tribute to LSD. As do much of their first seven albums, not counting the album Go Now was on.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Hilarity_N.Suze

You have to look for certain key words. SNOW for instance means cocaine; HORSE means heroin. “Grandmother” = the pusher or drug dealer. “Over the river”=Mexico, where a lot of drugs are procured. “Through the woods” – directions, obviously means some kind of trip. Etc.

So “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go!” is more sinister than we thought, eh?

Bastards!

[handsomeharry]

@bordelond

Anyone else remember the rumors about Peter, Paul, and Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon”?

Are you a pothead, bordelond?

[drad_dog]

@CaptMurdock

I’m fairly sure America’s “Horse With No Name” is about a drug trip in the desert.

I’m less sure about The Who’s “Magic Bus.”

Randy Newman said that Horse with no name is “about a kid who thinks he’s taken acid”

[NineToTheSky]

Small Faces - Here Comes The Nice. (1967) The nice is the drug dealer.
Here come the nice lookin’ so good
He makes me feel like no one else could
He knows what I want, he’s got what I need
He’s always there if I need some speed

Donovan - Sunny Goodge Street (1965)
On the firefly platform on sunny Goodge Street
Violent hash-smoker shook a chocolate machine

Animals - A Girl Named Sandoz (1967) Sandoz was the name of the laboratory where LSD was first synthesized.
Bert Jansch - Needle Of Death (1965) Somewhat obvious.
The Smoke - My Friend Jack (1967) Eats sugar lumps.