My Favorite One Hit Wonders of the 70s: One Toke Over the Line (#7)

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Happy Independence Day! What's more independent than listening to great music! Here's another entry in my list of my favorite one-hit wonders of the 1970s. #7: One Toke Over the Line - Brewer & Shipley NOTE: The mention of this song should not be seen as an endorsement....yeah, tell it to Willie Nelson. The punch line to the inclusion of this song is that I have never smoked pot. The Navy recruiter was almost bodily thrown out of my parents' house when he asked about that and I said "no," and he scoffed (this was 1978, remember), "C'mon, you mean you've never smoked pot?" My dad didn't take kindly to that and out he went. Spiro T. Agnew, who was the Vice President at the time, said this song was destroying the moral fabric of America. (For those of you too young to remember, Angew was later forced to resign over charges of tax fraud, bribery, and all those other good moral things that politicians do while telling us what to do. ) This discussion is not to debate the legalization of marijuana. It's to celebrate a dang good song that just happens to be about being stoned. Change the lyrics to "one thin mint over the line" or whatever you want and you'll see that this is a dang good song. Folk singers Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley have had a long career, but this song was their only top 40 hit. A lot of radio stations refused to play it because of the drug reference (this isn't anything new, if you're wondering: Hank Williams was forced to change the lyrics of "My Bucket's Got a Hole In It" from "I can't get no beer" to "I can't get no milk" when he did it on the Grand Ole Opry because the Opry didn't want to be seen as endorsing drinking!). A number of songs have gained significant popularity simply by being banned or causing controversy, and this was one of them. It peaked at #10 on the Billboard chart in 1971...and, in terms of top 40 songs, Brewer & Shipley were never heard from again. Their classic song about being high while "sitting downtown in a railway station" may or may not have been as big without the controversy. I would hope it would have made it regardless, because it is a good song. PS -- if you need a really good laugh, go to You Tube and watch a couple of singers from The Lawrence Welk Show do this song. One Toke Over the Line Written by Mike Brewer & Tom Shipley Recorded by Brewer & Shipley From Tarkio, 1971 Brewer & Shipley's one hit: