BANNED AID – a guide to the banning of music – ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES

Previous BANNED AID posts:

“If you got bad news, you want to kick them blues, cocaine” is a line from the track COCAINE written by J.J. Cale, performed here by Eric Clapton for whom it was a hit – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFEPIH4Iq58&ab_channel=AyoubBelkhiri . Would you ban this song?

Imagine that an underage listener comes across the track HEROIN recorded by the highly successful charismatic Lou Reed and Velvet Underground with these lines in the lyric – “it makes me feel like a man when I put a spike into my vein . . . Heroin, it’s my wife and it’s my life”. If the listener then tries heroin and becomes addicted, is it the fault of the song? If you have done a responsible job as a parent, raised a child who is loved and feels secure, and who you can still communicate with in reasonable and non-judgmental ways, then chances are that child is not going to listen to what Lou Reed or anyone else says on a recording and ignore what is said by an understanding, reasonable parent who has lived with them all their lives, who respects them, who has their best interests at heart, and who loves them.

Drug addiction is generally caused not by songs but by the insecurity (economic and / or psychological) or anger that comes from having parents who neglect or abuse their kids (emotionally and / or physically), often leading to the desperate need of those kids to bow to peer pressure. Of course not all familial relationships are as great as those I have just described so one must still be careful. A drug song extolling the virtues and ignoring the dangers of illegal drug use might be just enough to lead to drug experimentation on the part of a neglected child who then becomes a victim through no fault of their own, a victim sometimes to the point of dying. In that case the song is just the final straw, however, not the sole or primary cause.

REEFER MAN

There is a long history of songs extolling the pleasures of the use of illegal drugs. In the 1930’s and 1940’s some of the popular songs were in fact drug songs which only a few people recognized as such because the songs used slang or suggestion, so no lyric changes were demanded. The highly-talented bandleader / singer / dancer Cab Calloway was the first African American to sell a million singles, and the first to have his own radio show. He also recorded songs with drug references using slang not widely known outside the musical community at the time. His song REEFER MAN from 1933 was about using marijuana (a reefer being a marijuana cigarette). His song KICKING THE GONG AROUND was about frequenting an opium den and the phrase ‘kicking the gong around’ was itself slang for using illegal drugs ( watch him carefully at the 1 minute 35 second mark – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnt6zCDO73M&ab_channel=SbrPL ).

GIMME A REEFER

The great blues singer Bessie Smith, nicknamed ‘Empress of the Blues’, at one point was the highest paid black entertainer in the United States. She also recorded the song GIMME A PIGFOOT in 1933 which contains the line ‘Gimme a reefer, and a gang of gin’.

Jazz musicians were known to use alcohol and illegal drugs from very early days. Many died young and drug use was often a contributing factor in their death. However many also abused alcohol as well (which was illegal during Prohibition) and suffered from heart attacks. Their bodies just gave up in many cases after years of miscellaneous abuse. Saxophonist Charlie Parker was addicted to heroin and died at the age of 34. Singer Billie Holiday used heroin and she died at the age of 44. Saxophonist Paul Desmond used cocaine, amphetamines and LSD and died at the age of 52. Trumpeter Chet Baker was addicted to heroin and he died at the age of 58. Saxophonist Sonny Stitt was a heroin user and he died at the age of 58 as well. But drug addiction is not necessarily a death sentence. Musical genius Louis Armstrong used cannabis almost daily and he made it to 69. Whether one survives hard drug use may also depend on an individual’s personality, or on circumstance (e.g. do they have loved ones supporting them when they quit their habit?). Trumpeter Miles Davis used heroin and made it to 65, saxophonist Gerry Mulligan used heroin and made it to 68, Drummer Art Blakey used heroin and made it to 71, trombonist J.J.Johnson used heroin and made it to 77.


MILES DAVIS 1991 SHORTLY BEFORE HIS DEATH
By Peter Buitelaar – Miles Davis "The Man with the Horn", CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3944634

In the rock era the ages at death from drug use dropped precipitously, many dying in their twenties. Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose, Jimi Hendrix died of a barbiturate overdose, Amy Winehouse used heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine. All three died in their twenties. Keith Moon of The Who used amphetamines and ketamine, and died at the age of thirty-two. The Doors released the song Crystal Ship which was about many things, including crystal methamphetamine use. The lead singer, Jim Morrison, used LSD and heroin and he died at the age of 27. Here is Crystal Ship, which as far as I know was never banned – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imcHmSUVEvk&ab_channel=215Days .

Things started to get controversial in the early 1960’s when groups released drug songs disguised as safe songs so that they wouldn’t get banned from radio play which would significantly cut into their record sales. The song WALK RIGHT IN released by the Rooftop Singers back in 1962 was later perceived as a drug song because of these lines: “Walk right in, sit right down / Daddy let your mind roll on . . . Everybody’s talkin’ ‘bout a new way of walkin’ / Do you want to lose your mind?’ However, the song was co-written by Gus Cannon and recorded by Cannon’s Jug Stompers in 1929 so it may or may not have been a drug song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-qiC1jynmc&ab_channel=SmurfstoolsOldiesMusicTimeMachine .

EIGHT MILES HIGH was released by The Byrds in 1966 and when some perceived it as a possible drug song The Byrds denied that it was. Later, however, two of the song’s composers, Gene Clark and David Crosby, admitted that it was indeed inspired by illegal drug use. I CAN SEE FOR MILES was composed by Pete Townshend and was released by The Who in 1967. Some saw it as a drug song, others didn’t. It was not banned.

Once the counterculture kicked in bands began releasing songs encouraging illegal drug use openly and no one seemed to be particularly offended. There were many drug songs, and many rock stars getting arrested or dying from illegal drug use. Some famous drug recordings which were not banned and whose lyrics have remained intact:

There have also been some anti-drug songs released by counterculture bands who began to see the down side of illegal drugs, for example: SISTER MORPHINE (The Rolling Stones – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCnx2kjk8T4&ab_channel=Fritzes007 ), THE PUSHER (Steppenwolf), and THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE (Neil Young). Young wrote this song when the guitarist in his backup band Crazy Horse, Danny Whitten, became heavily addicted to heroin. Not long after the song was released Whitten died of a drug overdose at age 29 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd3oqvnDKQk&ab_channel=neilyoungchannel

RAINY DAY WOMEN #12 AND 35

Bob Dylan uses a pun on the word ‘stoned’ as the basis of this song and of course the Rainy Day Women are the illegal drugs the narrator is using.

LIGHT MY FIRE

The Doors were invited to perform their big hit Light My Fire on The Ed Sullivan Show as long as they changed the lyric “Girl we couldn’t get much higher”, an obvious drug reference. The lead singer, Jim Morrison, promised to change the lyric, but the show was live so when Morrison performed the song without changing the line Sullivan was furious. However he couldn’t do anything about it except ban the group from future shows. But the Doors had just appeared on the show and thus gained the national exposure they sought, so they just laughed at the idea of never being invited back to the show. Here’s the clip – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKd6yarfkxA&ab_channel=Remasteredvideos .

THE SONG THAT WAS AND WASN’T A DRUG SONG

LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS, written and recorded by The Beatles, according to one of its two composers, John Lennon, was not a drug song but was inspired by a painting drawn by Lennon’s son Julian in nursery school. Such a painting by young Julian does in fact exist, and it was in fact an inspiration for the song. Lennon has also said that he loved the book Alice in Wonderland as a child and was trying to create a feeling of Wonderland in the song’s lyrics. However, years later the song’s other composer, Paul McCartney, said that it was in fact designed to simulate an LSD trip as well as being inspired by the painting. Note the initials of the main words in the song’s title.

THE DRUG SONG THAT WASN’T A DRUG SONG

PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON was a big hit for the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. However in the paranoiac eyes of United States Vice President Spiro Agnew the words ‘puff’ and ‘magic’ set off alarm bells and he got the song banned. It wasn’t a drug song.

A FINAL THOUGHT

There are also those who blame an individual’s violent behaviour on songs describing violence, so they want to ban violent songs, even songs that describe but also condemn violence. These critics want us to believe that years of upbringing can be erased in five minutes. A million people can listen to a song describing or even endorsing violence and if three of those people react by acting out violently the song gets blamed. What about the other 999 997 people who were exposed to the song as well and did not react violently? Violent people sometimes like violent songs but that’s because they are violent people. It’s not the songs that make them violent – make sure you have the arrow of causation pointed in the right direction. Some violent songs. Be careful –

Many people who behave violently do so because:

  • they were emotionally neglected as children and find it hard to view others with empathy
  • they were the targets of violence or they witnessed violence growing up (e.g. spousal abuse) so that is the only way they know how to deal with the world
  • they are angry victims of racism, sexism or homophobia / transphobia
  • they grew up in poverty in a society where self-worth is equated with affluence

If we want people to respond non-violently to violent lyrics and images (and we want people to be able to reject songs praising hard drug use) perhaps we need to put all our efforts not into banning songs, but into:

  • reducing / abolishing poverty and economic inequity
  • making sure contraception and abortion access is available to women so that children are not born into poverty or dysfunctional families
  • getting serious about preventing or eliminating domestic abuse and sexual predation by coming down hard on the abusers so children witnessing the abuse don’t learn that violence is the way to deal with life
  • setting up non-violent conflict resolution programs in schools
  • reducing racist, sexist and anti-LGBT behaviours

2 thoughts on “BANNED AID – a guide to the banning of music – ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES”

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