You can tell from the Willie Nelson picture in the sidebar that I love music. When I was a kid, my parents bought me a brown plastic cassette player, and I carried it everywhere. I am mildly embarrassed of the cassette tapes I played over and over again (mostly Disney soundtracks and ’80s country music), but I recognize that the music I listened to had a huge impact on my childhood and the person that I have become. I grew up in the relatively isolated state of Wyoming (before the invention of the Internet and the iPhone), and tapes like Dolly Parton’s Rainbow (1987) and the Aladdin (1992) soundtrack were my window onto the world outside my hometown.
So it probably isn’t a surprise that when I think about marijuana I think about how I have heard it portrayed in music. To be honest, I can’t think of many songs that were written before the late 2000s that talk specifically about pot. Dolly smokes it in Nine to Five (1980), and Willie, Kris Kristofferson, and other people were definitely smoking it in their tour buses, but they were mostly silent about it in their music. When the subject did come up, you had to really listen for it. For example, in “Me and Paul” (1971), Willie sings that he “was almost busted in Laredo, but for reasons that [he’d] rather not disclose,” and that “if you’re staying in a motel there and leave, don’t leave nothing in your clothes.” There are lots of things you can get into trouble for leaving in a motel room, but since it’s Willie singing it seems pretty obvious that he’s talking about marijuana. Like I said, though, you have to listen for it.
In recent years the taboo on mentioning pot in popular music has disappeared. In 2009, I was shocked to hear Charlie Mars on the radio frankly inviting his friends to “come over and get high while [they] listen to The Dark Side of the Moon.” In the years since then pot has worked its way into hit songs even in that most conservative of musical genres (and one of my personal favorites)–country. In 2010, Eric Church had a hit with “Smoke a Little Smoke,” and in 2013’s “Follow Your Arrow,” Kacey Musgraves tells us that when “the straight and narrow gets a little too straight” we should go ahead and “roll up a joint.”
The more visible using marijuana has become in songs and other forms of popular media the more people have accepted it as normal behavior. I think this is mostly a good thing, but still I have to wonder if something hasn’t been lost with the total mainstreaming of pot in American culture. Back in 1971, rolling a joint meant something. Kris Kristofferson was a long-haired liberal who was friends with Janis Joplin and rejuvenated country music with a folk and hippie sensibility. For Willie Nelson, who felt stifled by the lack of artistic freedom afforded him in Nashville, making subtle references to smoking pot was an act of defiance. Now, singing glibly about taking hits from a bong is business as usual in the music industry (country included), and according to one of my favorite blogs, Saving Country Music, Willie is getting ready to open his own chain of weed-related products and stores. Where is the rebellion in that?
I found the article very interesting. I have heard Kacey Musgraves music and I do like her songs. Marijuana has always been around its just up until recently that the public has become more aware of it.
It’s interesting and clearly evident that times are changing.
When I was younger I was always told that drugs, and marijuana especially, were horrible things used by even worse people. But as I grew older I discovered that some of my favorite artists and even friends used marijuana but, that didn’t mean they were hardcore criminals. All of this is teaching me not to 100 percent trust what I’m told about the world around me.
It’s fascinating how the article conveys an opinion using the world of music. Though, clearly there are many other ways marijuana has been promoted.
I am not shocked that mentions of marijuana were obscure before the 70s, because during many of those decades America valued class. Our nation was becoming more modern and more united in following social norms. It was a slap in the face to oppose the conventional standards. If our society was baffled at Elvis Presley’s music and appearance, then I’m certain that it would have been infuriated to hear a singer make a reference to marijuana. Although, I don’t believe in promoting marijuana for foolish reasons, I feel that artists who lived to express themselves freely were bound by restrictions that prevented them to do so.
I find it very interesting how the view on marijuana has changed over the years. This totally relates to my reading assignment “They Say”, we all have different point of views and we can choose whether to agree or counteract, in todays society many people see marijuana as a normal plant that provides many benefits, the music industry is filled with songs about marijuana that might just make people feel more comfortable about the topic and the word itself. It all depends on how we individually view things.
What stood out to me the most, about this article, was that Willie almost got busted in Laredo. It’s funny thinking a great artist like him mentioning my hometown when almost no one even knows it exists. That was very uplifting.
Abruptly, after hearing Charlie Mars sing about coming over and getting high, I smiled. Music, in my opinion, has a heavy impact on peoples actions, whether its to go get your carpet cleaned or to go dance the night away. So for a guy like Charlie Mars to sing such things as marijuana, creates a calamity on the acts of smoking. It can even persuade people that they can do it with ease and feel no remorse. Therefore, with Marijuana being a popular topic to sing about, maybe it has (and still is) shaped the country in the way it is today.
In my opinion, marijuana has always been overrated. The media has mainly portrayed the substance as an evil drug that kills people. Especially in the 80’s with the height of the “War on Drugs in America”. If you were seen using it, people would see you as someone completely different. But in my experience, I’ve seen many of my close acquaintances use the plant a couple of times and stayed perfectly the same, the only thing that changed was that they had a bad case of the munchies. So when i see that more and more people are coming out and saying that they at least tried it makes me respect them more as a person because of their honesty.
Perfect example of how society reacts upon new mainstream cultural influences within music. Music, especially, allows individuals to convey their own meanings behind different topics presented within songs. in this case, marijuana. The impact may seem small, but when looked at in a whole, a new shaping of society is happening.
I think marijuana is talked about more in songs and shown a lot more because of social media and easy access to the internet. In today’s culture, music have evolved and marijuana is a popular topic since smoking is now seen as something “cool” to do.
I think that marijuana is going to be anywhere nowadays because it is a fight. People want marijuana to be legalized and they’re going to do whatever they can to prove why they believe it is a safe practice. Personally, I grew up to believe that marijuana was a horrible thing to do, but after hearing people’s arguments, the legalization of marijuana seems right.
Like Sabrina I have been raise to think that marijuana is bad and all, but in many recent articles it has been proven that marijuana help people ease the pain in some medical crisis and create a new sort of creativity when writer block. In this case music.
I find your point of view interesting because the music you listen gave subtle hints to it. When I was growing up many of the songs my brother like made reference to weed and many of those songs I listen to today. It’s very interesting to see who times have changed.