"In September 1970, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, in a speech in Las Vegas, warned that drug use was threatening 'to sap our national strength'..."

"... and called out a number of pop songs, including the Beatles’ 'With a Little Help From My Friends' and the Byrds’ 'Eight Miles High,' as 'latent drug culture propaganda.' Within a year, under the Nixon administration, the Federal Communications Commission warned broadcasters about playing songs with lyrics that might promote drug use. As a result, 'One Toke Over the Line' was banned by radio stations in Buffalo, Miami, Houston, Washington, Chicago, Dallas and New York. Brewer & Shipley, Mr. Brewer said, came to embrace the crackdown as 'a badge of honor.'"

From "Michael Brewer, Whose 'One Toke' Was a Big Hit, Is Dead at 80/The duo Brewer & Shipley reached the Top 10 in 1970 with 'One Toke Over the Line,' a ditty about marijuana that ran afoul of Nixon-era censors" (NYT).

Brewer lived to be 80 and that was half a century after he expressed this conception of how he wanted to die: "My last wish will be just one thing/Be smilin' when I die/I wanna be one toke over the line, sweet Jesus/One toke over the line..."

The singer was "sitting downtown in a railway station" and "just waitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary." 

Even if the song originated from an exclamation about smoking marijuana, it seems that the substance of the song is religious. The metaphor of the train is seen in other songs, such as "People Get Ready (There's a train a-coming....") and "This Train (Is Bound for Glory)."

I wouldn't brush off "One Toke Over the Line" as a "ditty."

And by the way, screw Agnew. Back in 1970, young people easily opposed censorship. Who would have thought that in 50 years, the tables would be turned and the young would embrace it?

A vogue word, rejected.

You don't need to care about the NYT crossword to be interested in what follows — it discusses a current buzzword — but it does reveal a couple answers. 

From Rex Parker's write-up of today's puzzle:

"Fonda kept insisting on telling people that he knew what it was like to actually be dead, in a misguided attempt to reassure George Harrison, who he wrongly believed was scared of dying..."

"... and insisted on showing them his self-inflicted bullet wounds. This did not go down well with John Lennon and George Harrison, both of whom were on acid at the time. As Lennon later said, 'We didn’t want to hear about that! We were on an acid trip and the sun was shining and the girls were dancing and the whole thing was beautiful and Sixties, and this guy – who I really didn’t know; he hadn’t made Easy Rider or anything – kept coming over, wearing shades, saying, "I know what it’s like to be dead," and we kept leaving him because he was so boring! … It was scary. You know … when you’re flying high and [whispers] "I know what it’s like to be dead, man."' Eventually they asked Fonda to get out, and the experience later inspired Lennon to write ['She Said, She Said']. Incidentally, like all the Beatles songs of that period, that was adapted for the cartoon TV series based on the group, in this case as a follow-the-bouncing-ball animation. There are few things which sum up the oddness of mid-sixties culture more vividly than the fact that there was a massively popular kids’ cartoon with a cheery singalong version of a song about a bad acid trip and knowing what it’s like to be dead."

From "Episode 139: 'Eight Miles High' by the Byrds" (on the podcast "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs"). I excerpted something about The Beatles, but the episode is ostensibly about The Byrds. That said, there's also plenty about John Coltrane and Ravi Shankar. And Sonny and Cher.

"He introduced a descending bassline... 'a common enough progression in jazz, but unusual among folksingers.'"

"It’s actually something you’d get a fair bit in baroque music as well, and van Ronk introducing this into the song is probably what eventually led to things like Procul Harum’s 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' ripping off Bach doing essentially the same thing. What van Ronk did was a simple trick. You play a descending scale, mostly in semitones, while holding the same chord shape which creates a lot of interesting chords. The bass line he played is basically this...  And he held an A minor shape over that bassline, giving a chord sequence Am, Am over G, Am over F#, F.... This is a trick that’s used in hundreds and hundreds of songs later in the sixties and onward — everything from 'Sunny Afternoon' by the Kinks to 'Go Now' by the Moody Blues to 'Forever' by the Beach Boys — but it was something that at this point belonged in the realms of art music and jazz more than in folk, blues, or rock and roll."

From Episode 115 of "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs," "'House of the Rising Sun' by the Animals."

I love hearing about influences that surprise me, about songs I've known very well for over half a century. Another example of that from this podcast is from Episode 113: "'Needles and Pins' by The Searchers":

"Kids having fun!"

Kids having fun! https://t.co/01jfLqXULw

— Roger McGuinn (@RogerMcGuinn) January 18, 2021

That chord.

Yeah, that was the Rickenbacker 12-string @GeorgeHarrison used in "A Hard Day's Night." Look at the chord he's playing. It's from the instrumental break of "Bells of Rhymney." :-) https://t.co/e9Z3w2hpAq

— Roger McGuinn (@RogerMcGuinn) March 9, 2019

Wikipedia says: G7add9sus4, G7sus4, or G11sus4 and others below.
Part of the chord is an Fadd9 It is F with a G on top. https://t.co/ecpxEHtSJb

— Roger McGuinn (@RogerMcGuinn) March 9, 2019

"One of the more overlooked Turtle records and probably my favorite...."

That's Flo & Eddie (in 1975), who were in The Turtles in 1969 when "You Showed Me" was a hit. The song was written in 1964 by Gene Clark and Jim (Roger) McGuinn, before they were Byrds. I've embedded a live version because there's real film (and I thought you might be horrified by the Jim Morrison imitation that happens at the beginning). But here's the studio version, the 1969 hit that's so beautiful. Here's The Byrds' version. I love The Byrds, but The Turtles are better on this one. The Byrds version is annoyingly fast, but that's the original idea, and the slowed down version only happened because The Turtles learned the song from a guy who had to play slowly because his harmonium was malfunctioning. It's not as though they didn't know it was meant to be fast. It was better slow.

I learned that reading Wikipedia, which says it was sampled on "The Playboy Mansion" (U2) in 1997 and in 1989 on "Transmitting Live From Mars " (De La Soul). The Turtles sued De La Soul for using the music without permission. Here's the "trip hop" version by The Lightning Seeds from 1996 (very similar to The Turtles). Here's Lutricia McNeal in 2002. Kanye West used it in 2010 in his song "Gorgeous." And here's Salt 'n' Pepa in 1990:

"[Stephen] Stills may be hobbled by arthritis—backstage he bumps fists rather than shakes hands with fans..."

"... he has carpal tunnel and residual pain from a long-ago broken hand, which affects his playing—and he is nearly deaf, but his performance life has continued. Drugs and alcohol may have dented him somewhat, forming a kind of carapace over the youthful sensitivity and cockiness one often saw in the face of the young Stills. Some might infer by looking at the spry James Taylor or Mick Jagger that heroin is less hard on the body than cocaine and booze, which perhaps tear down the infrastructure. ('Stills doesn’t know how to do drugs properly,' Keith Richards once said.) But one has to hand it to a rock veteran who still wants to get on stage and make music even when his youthful beauty and once-tender, husky baritone have dimmed. It shows allegiance to the craft, to the life, to the music. It risks a derisive sort of criticism as well as an assault on nostalgia."

The novelist Lorrie Moore writes a book review (NYRB) for a biography of Stephen Stills. 

I'm interested in reading the review because Lorrie Moore wrote it. I don't particularly care about Stephen Stills, but if Moore wants to describe him, I'm up for hearing about his carapace and his infrastructure. And I do love this one song...



... which I believe somebody brought up in one of the comments sections this morning. Let's see. Ah, yes. Here it is: pacwest said:

Apparently, we're in a time to break down, a time to cast away stones.

"To everything... There is a season... And a time to every purpose, under heaven... A time to build up, a time to break down/A time to dance, a time to mourn/A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together...."

"David Crosby readily admits that he probably shouldn't be alive. Drug addiction, alcoholism and health issues..."

"... have taken their toll but have not knocked David out. He's still making music and going out on tour, but he had a little time to talk with Marc about The Byrds, CSN, Neil Young, Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, Woodstock, Altamont, Melissa Etheridge, and much more."

It's not Marc Maron at his greatest, but it was nice hearing from David Crosby, who has acquired some wisdom and humility in his old age... some of it by spending a year in prison in Texas where being a celebrity got you nothing.

If you're like me and you love David from his time in The Byrds — my first rock concert was The Byrds at Newark Symphony Hall on March 27, 1966 — you'll be pained by how little Marc knows or cares about The Byrds. Marc, born in 1963, hangs out in the Crosby, Stills & Nash period. But I did learn that The Byrds kicked Crosby out, and according to Crosby, he deserved it because he was an asshole.

Now, you can tour the London bedroom where Jimi Hendrix lived in 1969.

"The house, in Mayfair, has now been painstakingly restored to look exactly as it did in 1969, using picture[s] of him inside and recollections of former girlfriend Kathy Etchingham."

Among the details: a bedside tablescape of "Voodoo Child" lyrics, a shell, and Benson and Hedges cigarettes, a fruitbowl on the floor, a silky bed jacket, the board game Monopoly, and the album "Fifth Dimension" by The Byrds (which The Daily Mail inanely calls a record "from Fifth Dimension").



ADDED: Too bad we never got to see a Super Bowl halftime show with The Byrds and The 5th Dimension playing together, in the manner of last night's Coldplay + Beyonce.

"Once, a long time ago, a rock star was a free-spirited, convention-flouting artist/rebel/hero/Dionysian fertility god..."

"Now, 60 years, give or take, since the phrase came into existence, 'rgreat name) iock star' has made a complete about-face. In its new incarnation, it is more likely to refer to a programmer, salesperson, social-media strategist, business-to-business telemarketer, recruiter, management consultant or celebrity pastry chef than to a person in a band."

So writes Carina Chocano (n a NYT piece titled "How ‘Rock Star’ Became a Business Buzzword."

I don't know how old Chocano is, but I've been around for the entire 60-plus-or-minus years of rock and roll and I can assure you that the term "rock star" never had the golden significance she imagines. The Byrds satirized the idea in 1967:

So you want to be a rock'n'roll star
Then listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar
And take some time and learn how to play
And when your hair's combed right and your pants fit tight
It's gonna be all right

Then it's time to go downtown
Where the agent men won't let you down
Sell your soul to the company
Who are waiting there to sell plastic ware
And in a week or two if you make the charts
The girls will tear you apart

What you pay for your riches and fame
Was it all a strange game
You're a little insane
The money that came and the public acclaim
Don't forget what you are
You're a rock'n'roll star

And don't get me started on The Mothers of Invention, "Live at the Fillmore East 1971."

50 years ago today: The Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man" hit #1 on the Billboard chart.

"When the Byrds released their debut single for Columbia Records, few could've guessed the scope of history that would follow... Not only did the band score a Hot 100 leader on its first try, but the song's writer, Bob Dylan, landed what stands as his sole No. 1 as a writer."

That is — I think — my favorite new song on the radio. And I mean based on my experience at the time — the amazement and love at first hearing. Here — that will play without an ad. You'll see Jim — it was Jim then — McGuinn with his Jim McGuinn glasses halfway down his nose. It wasn't ridiculous then, I assure you.

"How Caitlyn Jenner won Bruce Jenner’s Olympic medals?"

"Did Bruce Jenner or Caitlyn Jenner win those Olympic gold medals and appear on those TV shows? And if Caitlyn Jenner did, must history be rewritten? Is every source that refers to 'Bruce Jenner, record-breaking athlete' — or 'Bruce Jenner, guest star on "Silver Spoons"' — now in need of a correction?" Asks WaPo.

Wikipedia thought so. By Tuesday evening, the ubiquitous crowdsourced encyclopedia was redirecting its “Bruce Jenner” page to “Caitlyn Jenner” and using the pronoun “she.”

Example: “At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada, she won the gold medal in the decathlon, setting a world record of 8,616 points, beating her own world record set at the Olympic Trials,” the Caitlyn Jenner Wikipedia page read at 11:24 p.m. EST on June 1. This sentence was a bit jarring: “Jenner was also the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year in 1976.” Even the Wikipedia page for “Can’t Stop the Music,” a poorly received — and pretty darn obscure — film featuring the Village People that Jenner appeared in in 1980, lists “Caitlyn Jenner” as a star.

All I want to say is that I went right to YouTube and checked "Can’t Stop the Music" and I'm just pleased to get another opportunity to use my "men in shorts" tag:



"I told ya I had a surprise for ya." That's Bruce Jenner's line. I like the actress's line as a statement from Traditional America: "Wait a minute. I am not taking one more step until I know where I'm going."

ADDED: People do change their names. I remember having a lot of trouble adjusting to Jim McGuinn becoming Roger McGuinn. The rest of it is about the pronouns, and this is an occasion to reflect upon how odd it is that we make sex/gender so important that it's tightly interwoven in our everyday speech. Some feminists (and others) have tried to get us to switch to gender-neutral pronouns, and we've rejected that. There are consequences. I recommend not getting too twisted up about it. We like our gendered pronouns, and some people want to change their pronoun format. Sex/gender really are unfathomably important to human beings (and other animals). Or do you think you can fathom it and say something definitive? If not, marvel at the mystery and look for something valuable to do with the short life you have. Gender is like religion — extremely meaningful to people in ways that work without necessary alignment to what is true and usually not a good topic for argument, not unless you've built a relationship of trust with your interlocutor.

"My dining room looked out over Frank Zappa's duck pond, and once when my mother was visiting, three naked girls were floating around on a raft in the pond."

"My mother was horrified by my neighborhood. In the upper hills the Buffalo Springfield were playing, and in the afternoon there was just a cacophony of young bands rehearsing. At night it was quiet except for cats and mockingbirds. It had a smell of eucalyptus, and in the spring, which was the rainy season then, a lot of wildflowers would spring up. Laurel Canyon had a wonderful distinctive smell to it."

Joni Mitchell, quoted in "An Oral History of Laurel Canyon, the 60s and 70s Music Mecca."

She also said:

David Crosby and I were never a couple. We spent time together in Florida and he was off drugs and very enjoyable company at that time. We rode bicycles through Coconut Grove and went boating. But David's appetites were for young harem girls who would wait on him. I would not be a servant girl. I had a child-like quality that made me attractive to him and my talent made me attractive. But we weren't an item; I guess you could call it a brief summer romance in Florida.

And David Crosby said:

I wanted to be with a great number of women. I was very entranced with Joni when I was with her, but she had her own plans. Graham [Nash] was unquestionably the best thing that ever happened for her.

Many more quotes at the link. Please discuss the article and the music and culture of the 60s and the 70s in the comments. That is, do me a favor and don't mention Morgellons disease. Here's an old post from 2010 about that if you want a place to put a comment on that subject.

"We Exist."

I chose this photograph — of a door in the East Village — as the next picture to blog from the trip we took to NYC over the weekend. I chose it for 2 reasons:

1. I'd just blogged "Beautiful woman reads a book in Russian by the light of the refrigerated pastry case" and got caught up thinking about the other woman in my photograph. She too exists.

2. We were talking about Maureen Dowd's pot freakout. She'd broached the topic of her possible nonexistence: "I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me."

"Al Gore made $200 million. Good for him!"

Said Meade. Acknowledging that I got the reference, I said, "But he didn't do it alone..."

Meade has his computer screen open to Drudge, the right 2/3 of which looks like this right now:



It's all about smiles, as the dolphin in the lower right corner makes clear. Meade says, "Wow, George P. Bush looks like Nixon," and I say, "And Obama too... strangely." The Gore smile is waxen. For all I know the pic is of a wax depiction of the GoreBot, the ManBearPig we've come to dread.

Meanwhile, there's Leo, our new Gatsby, apparently "vibrantly alive." The word "vibrant" appears only once in "The Great Gatsby":

He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions.

I think you know what to do with that sentence. And if not, my belief in the harmony of the universe — or the mystical shades and echoes of pink dolphins or the reliability of the Althouse commentariat — tells me that betamax3000 will show you the way.

Insincere "Jesus."

A topic this morning at Meadhouse is the insincere use of "Jesus" in pop songs circa 1970.

1. "Jesus Is Just Alright."

The song's title makes use of the American slang term "all-right," which during the 1960s was used to describe something that was considered 'cool' or very good. The song has been covered by a number of bands and artists over the years, including The Byrds, Underground Sunshine, The Doobie Brothers, Alexis Korner, The Ventures, DC Talk, Shelagh McDonald, and Robert Randolph (featuring Eric Clapton).

2. "Spirit in the Sky."

[Norman] Greenbaum... was inspired to write the song after watching Porter Wagoner on TV singing a gospel song. Greenbaum later said : "I thought, 'Yeah, I could do that,' knowing nothing about gospel music, so I sat down and wrote my own gospel song. It came easy. I wrote the words in 15 minutes." "Spirit in the Sky" contains lyrics about the afterlife, making several references to Jesus, although Greenbaum himself is Jewish.

3. "One Toke Over the Line." ("One toke over the line, sweet Jesus...")

The catchy single, "One Toke Over the Line," peaked at #10 (#5 in Canada), garnering notice from Spiro Agnew for what he saw as its subversiveness. Ironically, the song was performed (by Gail Farrell and Dick Dale) on The Lawrence Welk Show, which billed it a "modern spiritual."[2] The song is notably mentioned in the opening of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and was notably "sung" by Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) in the film of the same name. "

Any more examples? Help me out here. The topic is: Insincere (or arguably insincere) references to Jesus in popular songs in the days before Christian rock was a thing.

I know there's also "The Christian Life" on the Byrds album "Sweetheart of the Rodeo," — which came out a year before the album with "Jesus Is Just Alright" — but I'm not putting it on the list, because I don't think it was played on the radio. The Byrds suddenly switched from psychedelic rock to country music, which was a strange thing to do at the time and it didn't feel like a bid for another hit record.

"'Christian Life' was performed tongue-in-cheek," said [Chris] Hillman. "After Roger [McGuinn] sang it, he admitted to going overboard with the accent. Roger was from Chicago and here he is, doing this heavy, syrupy country twang."

My buddies shun me since I turned to Jesus
They say I'm missing a whole world of fun
I live without them and walk in the light
I like the Christian life

MORE: Maybe it all started with the Paul Newman movie "Cool Hand Luke" — "I don't care if it rains or freezes/Long as I have my plastic Jesus/Riding on the dashboard of my car...":



IN THE COMMENTS: Fr. Denis Lemieux cites "Suzanne," by Leonard Cohen:

"Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water, and he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower, and when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him, he said all men shall be sailors then, until the sea shall free them...'

Not exactly insincere... more a use of Jesus outside of orthodox Christian theology, I guess. I find this a fascinating topic, though - intersection of faith and culture.

I agree that this is not insincere. It is mysterious/mystical... and that is religious. Suzanne herself explains:

BBC's Kate Saunders: Could you describe one of the typical evenings that you spent with Leonard Cohen at the time the song was written?

Suzanne: Oh yes. I would always light a candle and serve tea and it would be quiet for several minutes, then we would speak. And I would speak about life and poetry and we’d share ideas.

Saunders: So it really was the tea and oranges that are in the song?

Suzanne: Very definitely, very definitely, and the candle, who I named Anastasia, the flame of the candle was Anastasia to me. Don’t ask me why. It just was a spiritual moment that I had with the lightening of the candle. And I may or may not have spoken to Leonard about, you know I did pray to Christ, to Jesus Christ and to St. Joan at the time, and still do.

Saunders: And that was something you shared, both of you?

Suzanne: Yes, and I guess he retained that.

And El Pollo Real prompts me to include Bob Dylan on this list, but I refuse, because I don't think Dylan was insincere about Jesus — not on "Slow Train Coming" and not on earlier references: "Even Jesus would never forgive what you do" ("Masters of War" on "Freewheelin'"), "Jesus Christ was betrayed by a kiss" ("With God On Our Side," on "The Times They Are A-Changin'"), "You know they refused Jesus, too" ("Bob Dylan's 115th Dream," on "Bringing It All Back Home").

Meade wants to live in a shipping container.

He's always sending me stuff like this.

We do have a plan to move into a smaller dwelling sooner or later, but it's disturbing to realize that for Meade, that means living in something made out of a shipping container!

As long as I've enlisted you in helping me (or Meade) with this problem, help us decide where this shipping container/house should be. And no, we're not going to ship ourselves wherever this place is.

Song choice: "The Gift," Velvet Underground.

ADDED: Meade says living in something like that is a dream he's had since he was a little boy reading about the Boxcar Children, which he says was about a family of orphan children, who lived in a boxcar. And then there was "My Side of the Mountain," which was — I'm transcribing Meade in real time — "about a boy who — I can't remember the reason — runs away from home and lives in a hollow tree up in the mountains, and he adopts a falcon who... she'll be friends for life/she'll be just like a wife... and he lives on acorns. I liked the book because it gave practical advice... How to trap rabbits. It was like 'Survivor'... a survival manual... told by a 10-year old boy."

"Copyright time bomb threatens music labels."

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Under a US copyright law from 1978, artists who sold themselves to the recording companies could reclaim their copyright, and the precious royalties that go with it, in 35 years. All they need to do is file "termination claims" at least two years in advance.

As the deadline approaches the ageing stars of rock'n'roll are reaching for their lawyers. Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Bryan Adams, Tom Waits and Kris Kristofferson are already reported to have filed claims with the US Copyright Office. Other music legends seem ready to join battle.

The record labels are attempting to fend off the devastation by arguing that the albums were "works for hire," which, under copyright law, would mean that the artists were employees working for the record companies and the companies therefore always owned their work product.... sort of like what The Byrds were singing about in "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n Roll Star":

So you want to be a rock and roll star
Then listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar
Then take some time and learn how to play...

Then it's time to go downtown
Where the agent man won't let you down
Sell your soul to the company
Who are waiting there to sell plastic ware

Ha. That was back in 1967, when the idea that you were involved in making something plastic was supposed to be horrifying. That's why this was supposed to be so funny:



That's "The Graduate," which came out in 1967. 1967, that was a hell of a year. A year for shunning plastic. The Summer of Love. I was 16. Where were you?

Now, it's 2011. Do we have any sympathy for the record companies today? Their product isn't even plastic anymore. You know they've lost a lot of money in the switchover to digital. Or do you align with the artists? Are they still artists, these people who sing and play on the recordings?