Since rock & roll’s inception, drugs have been a popular themetic element. While cocaine and heroin may be cred-increasing glamour drugs, the mighty Mary Jane is the ubiquitous less glamorous cousin. Marijuana fuels creative juices without leaving rock stars dead in the back of tour buses. It is also the drug than spans more musical genres than the rest. From punk rock to country to jazz , musicians love to smoke fatties. There are even a couple rock sub-genres dedicated to the influences of said herb. There’s stoner rock and the jam band movement, both of which take their sound and lyrical content from the influence of cannabis. And that doesn’t even account for reggae, which pot has a been a constant presence in, due largely to the fact that the genre stems from the Rastafarian religion, a practice which considers marijuana use a sacrament. With this in mind, we opened the record vault here at YuppiePunk World HQ and dug up a handful of tracks about that gorgeous ganja. As Tom Petty once said, “Let’s get to the point, let’s roll another joint.”

Black Sabbath – “Sweet Leaf”
The satanic mother of all weed songs and the launching pad for a legion of stoner rock followers.

The Beatles – “Got to Get You Into My Life”
Paul McCartney’s troubles with marijuana are widely known, but few are aware that he called this song “an ode to pot.”

Bob Dylan – “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35 (live)”
A classic double entendre from “Blonde on Blonde.” Everybody must get stoned.

Green Day – “Green Day”
Billie Joe Armstrong wrote this song about the first time he got stoned. He liked the song (and the drug) so much he decided to change his band’s name to it.

NOFX – “Herojuana”
In this pro-drug tune’s final line, Fat Mike asks the Christian right: “If god created plants and buds that I find and abuse, then who the fuck are you to judge me?”

Weezer – “Hash Pipe”
Is it just a coincidence that the self-titled 2oo1 Weezer album this song appears on is best known as “The Green Album”?

Sublime – “Get Ready”
Load up the bong. Crank up the song.

Less Than Jake – “Dopeman”
A political skank about the hopeless nature of your neighborhood drug pusher.

Ben Harper – “Burn One Down”
No (once) dreadlocked songwriter could sell out massive concert venues without the aid of a handy dandy crowd-pleasing pot anthem. “Let us burn one from end to end,” Harper sings. “And pass it over to me my friend. Burn it long, we’ll burn it slow. To light me up before I go.”

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