![one toke over the line one toke over the line](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UZlfCre9Cmg/maxresdefault.jpg)
It’s still played all over the world, it’s in movies, on TV. MB: You can’t buy that type of publicity! Thanks to the people, they said, “Screw you” and played it anyway. RCM: Did it worry you at the time, career-wise? One night Vice President Spiro Agnew named us on national TV, named us personally as subversive to American youth and we made Nixon’s enemies list, which we held as a badge of honor, of course. That even included Puff the Magic Dragon. You gotta remember, this was back when the Nixon administration and the FCC were threatening radio stations with their licenses if they didn’t censor so-called drug lyrics in rock and roll. Needless to say it came as a big surprise to us that they released it and not only that it was a big hit but it received so much controversy. The president of the record company we were with at the time came backstage and said, “Oh man, you gotta record that and add it to the LP.” We were kind of like, “Really? Oh well, OK.” We didn’t even take the song seriously. We went over really well, had a couple of encores, and then we basically ran out of songs. In fact, the first time we played Carnegie Hall, we opened for Melanie, and we were working on our Tarkio album. The next day we got together and we were sayin’, “What was that we were messin’ with last night?” In about an hour we had a song, just entertaining ourselves. Just right on the spot, I started singing, “One toke over the line, sweet Jesus” and then we went on stage.
#ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE CRACKED#
And we came back in and Tom said, “Man, I’m one toke over the line,” and it just cracked me up, I thought it was hysterical. We stepped outside, shall I say, for a breath of fresh air ( laughs). MB: We were playing a little club in Kansas City, we had to do several sets a night and we were getting ready to go on for our last set. RCM: How did that apply to One Toke Over the Line? Sometimes they happen in minutes and sometimes it takes days. We’d just sit around and jam and come up with licks and a melody would come from some place and a phrase would come from that and we’d just kind of bounce off each other. And I had a tree stump in there with an ashtray and a candle and we would sit cross-legged facing each other and it sounded great in there. It was a little bit bigger than a normal closet and it had a small window so some sunlight could come in. Of course, it was the ‘60s, we came from the folk era and folk music traditionally has been about social commentary. We always had a tendency to be more personal and express our own thoughts and feelings about things. We learned early on that it really wasn’t our forte to just make up songs. We were just kind of crankin’ out songs ‘cause we were being paid to do that. Way back when, when we were first together and writing songs, we were staff writers for a couple of publishing companies for A&M Records, which was brand new at the time. Michael Brewer: No, nobody specializes in anything. Does one specialize in the melody and the other the lyrics? Rock Cellar Magazine: Tell us about your process for writing with Tom. Michael Brewer told Rock Cellar Magazine that when he and partner Tom Shipley wrote One Toke Over the Line, they didn’t think it was even worth recording… and that a little-known third verse was edited out before its release. Produced by the Electric Flag’s Nick Gravenites for the album Tarkio, the Top Ten hit almost didn’t make it to vinyl.
![one toke over the line one toke over the line](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OPlPpRRQeCI/maxresdefault.jpg)
The song would become Michael Brewer and Tom Shipley’s biggest hit so big that it caught the attention of Vice President Spiro Agnew, who termed the song – along with the Byrds’ Eight Miles High and Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit - “blatant drug-culture propaganda” that “threatens to sap our national strength.”ĭespite its marijuana references, the song somehow was performed on that bastion of wholesome American music, The Lawrence Welk Show. One Toke Over the Line by folk rock duo Brewer & Shipley was released in 1970 in an atmosphere of anti-war demonstrations and crackdowns on drug users.