10 classic songs written under the influence
The world of rock and roll isn’t really designed to be a drug-free zone. Not one person thriving in the industry during the early 1960s could claim to be straight, and some of the best songs in the world actually have their inspiration from the idea of overindulgence. In addition to writing about drugs, artists ranging from The Beatles to Weezer had a little bit of chemical assistance to get them going.
Rather than sit down with a pencil and paper, these artists just popped some pills, dropped some acid, or whatever they needed to get their creative juices flowiing. They sound like it, too, having surreal imagery and more than a few lines that don’t make much sense unless you’re chemically impaired.
While the drugs may have worked back in the day, these artists have been forthright about how tough it was to kick their habits. Despite providing inspiration in the first place, all of these roads eventually led to dead ends before these artists got back on the straight and narrow.
Drugs are never the answer to your problems and shouldn’t be expected in the world of rock and roll. But on the rare occasion when they do work, you end up making a handful of classics.
10 classic songs written under the influence
‘In a Gadda Da Vida’ – Iron Butterfly
If someone were to throw a dart at the singles charts back in 1967, anything was fair game for drug inspiration. Although Iron Butterfly’s classic looks and sounds like one of the greatest acid anthems ever made, the inspiration came from a cheap bottle of wine.
When the band were first gelling together, drummer Ron Bushy found lead singer and organist Doug Ingle awake for the past 24 hours and drunk out of his mind on red wine. After Ingle told him to write down the lyrics to a song he wrote, all the drummer could make out was a butchering of the phrase “in the garden of Eden”.
Once the song got its hard rock treatment in the studio, it quickly blossomed into a psychedelic monster, running at 17 minutes and having a seemingly endless amount of solos. Even though acid might have been the drug of choice back in the ‘60s, chances are you can listen to this song on a loop and get the exact same effect.
‘Sweet Leaf’ – Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath’s music has always been about making riffs that can scare you half to death. In between the songs about the dark side of life and what Satan has in store, Sabbath did like to enjoy a joint or two… or ten.
When Sabbath were working on Master of Reality, they were getting out of their minds on psychedelics, but ‘Sweet Leaf’ actually stemmed from the band’s love of marijuana. Though Ozzy Osbourne might be singing with the same amount of gusto, his mistress is just the sweet ganja leaf that’s giving him a buzz.
They weren’t even remotely shy about their habits either, with the song opening with Tony Iommi having a dry cough before the main riff kicks in. Although there are more than a few songs on here that sound druggy, the fuzziness of this riff is enough to give you at least a contact buzz.
‘Hash Pipe’ – Weezer
Weezer is probably one of the last bands you’d expect to have a drug problem. Out of all the alt-rock bands to move out of the ‘90s, these dorky guys seemed like the kind that would play D&D when they were finished rocking out. But Rivers Cuomo knew how to party, and he created one of the dirtiest riffs of his career with the help of some pills.
After the band reformed in the late ‘90s, Cuomo picked up a pill addiction, and ‘Hash Pipe’ is the result of him going out into his backyard, downing a few shots of tequila and Ritalin pills, and writing something heavy. The lyrics also read as a stream of consciousness from a drunk person as well, like him talking about bears coming to get him because they like his ass.
Though Cuomo put up smokescreen answers claiming that the song was about a ‘transvestite prostitute’, there isn’t any real meaning to what the song has to say. This is just a man fumbling around with his guitar and scraping together something that sounds badass.
‘Nutshell’ – Alice in Chains
For all of the great songs written about drugs, seldom do people talk about how much they can mess you up. By the time Alice in Chains got done writing the album Dirt, Layne Staley was going past the point of no return.
Nursing a heroin habit, Staley poured all of his self-pity into ‘Nutshell’, which reads as a preemptive suicide note after he loses his battle with heroin. Although the guitars are gorgeous behind him, Staley is practically crying out for help here, thinking that he’s lost all control of his habits and would feel much better dead.
The story didn’t have a happy ending either, as Staley sank deeper into a depression and became a hermit for the remainder of his life before passing away from a presumed overdose. There’s the old adage about addicts wanting to get the help they deserve, but when you’ve sunk this deep, any repentance seems futile.
‘Clint Eastwood’ – Gorillaz
In the beginnings of Britpop, Blur were the more clean-cut band compared to Oasis. Whereas the Gallagher brothers made a point to be as obnoxious as possible, Damon Albarn had a more reserved demeanour. When he needed some inspiration, it wasn’t hard for him to pick up the needle.
During the first few weeks of Gorillaz, Albarn mentioned turning to heroin to help him through his day, thinking that he would only take it in small doses. While he kept it at the studio, the results became ‘Clint Eastwood’, which fit in perfectly with the zany energy that 2-D was supposed to have on the first album.
Albarn couldn’t keep up his nasty streak for long, having to raise a daughter at home and getting clean whenever he had to come back to his family. Although Albarn got a great song out of the deal, he did realise that the excessive lifestyle is more of a young man’s game.
‘Plug In Baby’ – Muse
The mission statement behind every single Muse song is to make something that sounds otherworldly. Although Origin of Symmetry was meant to have a spaced-out tone to it, Matt Bellamy found his muse through some psychedelics.
After taking magic mushrooms, the opening riff to ‘Plug In Baby’ fell out of him, which sounded even more psychedelic when he got the snarling tone on the album. This wasn’t just a stream-of-consciousness thing either, with most of the riff owing a bit to Bach’s classical pieces.
Even with the semi-plagiarism, this song keeps you on the edge of your seat, with the bass line practically giving you the same raw nerves that Bellamy had when writing the basis of the song. Once Bellamy taps into his high register for the end of the song, this is about as high energy as you can get on mushrooms before things start to take a dark turn.
‘Supersonic’ – Oasis
Noel Gallagher made no excuses when he was off his face on drugs. During Oasis’ glory years, Gallagher was snorting everything he could get his hands on and, more often than not, found himself with a guitar in his hand. When it came time to record a new song for Definitely Maybe, Gallagher got his muse from a bit of white powder.
While the band were originally supposed to record the song ‘Bring It On Down’, the problems with the drumming led to Gallagher writing a new track. Nothing stopped him once he got going, finishing the song while the rest of the band ordered Chinese for dinner and came back to learn the tune.
The band spared no expense when recording the song either, taking only a few hours to put it down on tape and not making any edits when including it on their debut album. Cocaine might get you wired for a little while, but it helped Noel focus on one of the first incredible songs in the Oasis canon.
‘Back In the Saddle’ – Aerosmith
Aerosmith didn’t get the tagline – ‘The Bad Boys From Boston’ – by accident. The band’s need for excess was so big that even famed drug shaman Jerry Garcia thought they were overdoing it a little too much. Though cocaine was what led them to creativity in the early days, Joe Perry began ‘Back in the Saddle’ with a little help from heroin.
When under the influence, Perry talked about not wanting to be anywhere and just wallowing in his feelings with his guitar. Since he had just ordered a brand new six-string bass, Perry had started noodling and came up with the main heavy sound that opened up the album Rocks.
To this day, Perry almost doesn’t take credit for the riff, saying that the piece of music just flowed out of him instead of him having to write it down. Heroin might have been the catalyst, but Perry might have tapped into something spiritual to get something like this together in one pass.
‘The End’ – The Doors
The story of the Doors and drug abuse go hand in hand. Even though Jim Morrison was known for his drinking habit, nothing was off the table substance-wise, from cocaine to marijuana. When he was under the influence of LSD, ‘The End’ became the psychedelic fever dream fans know today.
Although the original basis of the song was supposed to be a breakup song, the drugs helped Morrison express himself in other ways. This includes the extended jam where he talks about a killer waking before dawn and then ultimately channelling Oedipus Rex.
There were also a few unexplained moments in the studio, including one instance where Morrison came back to the studio and mistook the glowing red light for a fire and drenched the entire studio with a fire extinguisher. Morrison may have been the ultimate frontman, but stunts like this were a preview of the dangers that were to come.
‘Rain’ – The Beatles
Towards the mid-60s, the Beatles had grown tired of their mop-top image. Despite being one of the biggest bands in the world, the Fab Four were starting to expand their minds, being high on marijuana throughout most of the movie Help!. When it came time to make a new single, acid became a prime component of ‘Rain’.
Granted, the early drafts of the song were nothing like the acid-soaked version we know today. Though John Lennon originally wrote the song about people complaining about the weather, he started the recording again from scratch after accidentally putting the tape reels backwards on his demos.
Loving the sounds he heard, the session for ‘Rain’ became an experimental wonderland, incorporating backwards vocals, some of Ringo Starr’s most ferocious drum rolls, and the band slowing down the tape to give it even more of a hazy feel. The Summer of Love wouldn’t come for a few more months after this record, but from the sounds of it, Lennon already had a head start.
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