3 Songs About Drugs and 3 Songs That Aren’t

Yes, we all know music largely revolves around sex, drugs and rock and roll, but sometimes it’s hard to actually tell which one the band is talking about. Here are six songs with meanings you may not have originally guessed.

Songs About Drugs:

“Got To Get You Into My Life” by The Beatles This track really sounds like a love song written for a love interest with lyrics like, "Ooh, I suddenly see you/Ooh, did I need you/Every single day of my life." Despite how it sounds though, this one is about the first time Paul tried marijuana and his instant love affair with the drug. What more would you expect from soneone who also named a romantic love song (Martha My Dear) after his dog? Source Image Via Gonzalo Barrientos [Flickr]

“Motorhead” by Hawkwind and Motorhead Even a lot of Motorhead fans don’t actually know that the name is a slang for a speedfreak. Lemmy wrote the song for the group Hawkwind first and then took it to be the title song for his post-Hawkwind group. Here’s some of the song’s lyrics that really give it away, “Motorhead, you can call me Motorhead, alright/ Brain dead, total amnesia/ Get some mental anesthesia.” Source “Hey Mr. Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan This one’s a little less certain. You see, although it is widely accepted that this song is about a man looking to score from his dealer, Bob claims none of his songs are about drug use. While I’m usually inclined to accept the artist’s word on his own songs, Mr. Dylan also claims that “Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35” A.K.A. “Everybody Gets Stoned” is especially not about drugs. I may be able to concede that he may have meant the song to be more about stonings and social outcasting, I have a hard time accepting a poet as prolific and intelligent as Bob Dylan didn’t realize and fully intend the double meaning of the chorus. Source Image Via MarkyBon [Flickr]

Songs Not About Drugs:

“Hotel California” by The Eagles With lyrics like “you can check out anytime, but you can never leave,” it’s easy to see why so many people associated the song with drug use. The reality is that the song is more about the hedonism of the Southern California lifestyle the group was exposed to in the seventies, which, to be fair, did include heavy drug use. Still, the drugs would be no more than a minor part of the song’s deeper meaning. Eagles drummer and writer Don Henley, said it was “basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about." Source Image Via Saguayo [Flickr]

“Mirror in the Bathroom” by The English Beat While many people assume any songs involving mirrors, particularly when the mirror is in a bathroom, must be references to cocaine, this one is actually about narcissism. The writer, Dave Wakeling, said he was inspired to write the song while he was looking in the mirror at himself debating whether or not he could skip work that day. He then started thinking about the self-involvement and narcissism. The line about “a restaurant that’s got glass tables” was actually a direct reference to a fancy restaurant that opened near him that, would you guess it, had glass tables. Funny enough, the success of the song may have helped lead the band into cocaine addictions; Dave later remarked about it that, “songs can become sort of strangely prophetic.” Source “Puff the Magic Dragon” by Peter, Paul and Mary

This song really is about a growing up and abandoning an imaginary friend who happens to be a dragon. Although it’s merely a tale of lost childhood innocence, the release of the song in the drug-fueled sixties led to many people assuming that anything with the word “puff” was actually a reference to marijuana. Co-writer Leonard Lipton once said, “I can tell you that at Cornell in 1959 [when the song was written], no one smoked grass.” So, if you were hoping for the song to actually have been about drugs, you almost certainly have already lost that childhood innocence referenced in the song. Source Image Via CelestialSpirit13 [Flickr]


The whole song isn't about drugs, but Life In The Fast Lane has the great lyric: "There were lines on the mirror, lines on her face..." I think those boys knew what they were writing. Oh, and in Hotel CA, the "warm smell of colitas" has been determined by Cecil Adams to be a reference to mary jane.
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“Hotel California” by The Eagles photo isn't the real Hotel California, nor is there such a place but the photo on the cover is some hotel that's on Hollywood Blvd.
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Lots of people think "There She Goes" by the Las (covered by Sixpence None The Richer) is about heroin, though the guy from the Las who wrote it always denied it.
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There is this story about how Dylan was shocked when he learned that the Beatles hadn't ever taken drugs until later in their career, as he'd always thought that, on "A Hard Day's Night", they sang "I get high" instead of "I can't hide".

People often hear and "find" some kind of meaning that's mostly in their minds all along, which does not mean they take drugs, but at least they associate the song or the act with them.
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"Here, there, and everywhere" I'm sure is about the weed too. "Knowing that love is to share?" "Watching her eyes?" "Hoping I'm always there?" Plus there is a very loud bong-watery sound in the background. I'm not imagining this. Am I? Who's THERE!!!
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There are many more. See if you recognize these lyrics. Riding Through The Desert on a HORSE with no name. (horse = heroin) Sail on SILVER GIRL. (needle) Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. (LSD). I Have Become Comfortably Numb.
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"Sugarman" by Sixto Rodriguez - one of the best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ACFylOYidI&feature=related

"silver magic ships you carry, jumpers, coke, sweet maryjane..."
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Did anyone consider "A Perfect Day" by Reed to be about dope pre-Trainspotting?

There was another question like this in my head earlier but I can't remember it as wondering about the lyrics to "Drugs" by the Black Lips has taken over. (Ran out of CHEESE and my nose is runnin'? It pretty much makes sense...)
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The story teller in Puff the Majic Dragon was Little Johnny Paper. If not about toking, why name him Paper? I never met a person named Paper in the real world.
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Ok, some quick debunks:
Paul McCartney's "GTGYIML" may have been about Mary Jane, but "Here There and Everywhere" was about another Jane-- Jane Asher, his then-girlfriend.
"I Want Candy" was a cover of a song released in the early Sixties (by the Strangeloves). It is most likely what it says it is about-- candy.
"The Candy Man" was written for the children's movie "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". Indeed it is a psychedelic-influenced film, but the song itself is not a drug reference.
Finally, its Little JACKIE Paper, not Johnny.
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Oh, and Patti, the initials in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was not a reference to LSD. It was based on a picture John Lennon's son Julian made in school. I'm sure, though, that Lennon took delight in the happy coincidence.
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"Waiting For My Man" is a bit too literal. The Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man" is the superior drug-anticipation song.

The hedonism mentioned for "Hotel California" most definitely includes addiction.

How about the fact that some people still think David Bowie's "Space Oddity" is about an astronaut, not about being high on heroin? If it wasn't apparent then, he made it clear later singing "Ashes to Ashes. Funk to Funky. We know Major Tom's a junkie." -The BBC even played it in England for the moon-landing.

How 'bout a list to clarify which Spiritualized songs are about drugs and which are about being in love? Wait, all of them are, simultaneously.
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"They stab it with their steely knives/but they just can't kill the beast." Unless I'm mishearing those lyrics from Hotel California (always a strong possibility), I'm pretty sure that's a clear reference to heroin.

No "Mr Brownstone" by GnR?
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