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Marijuana and Music...a brief history
(Margaret Moser, The Austin Chronicle, May 25, 2007)
Who wrote the first song about smoking pot? . . . It's been lost to history, but here's a political side note to the 4:20 generation: During the Mexican Revolution of 1910, thousands of native Mexicans moved north across the Rio Grande, many settling around San Antonio. With them came a curious song called "La Cucaracha," known perhaps apocryphally as Pancho Villa's theme song. . . . "La Cucaracha" crackled with life, a swaying Spanish-tune-turned-Mexican corrido quickly picked up by jazz bands and danced into popular music. No song better evoked the languorous image of life south of the border in vintage films, newsreels, and radio programs of the day. Few people realized the lyrics bespoke a cockroach's yearning to stay high. . . . "La cucaracha ya no puede caminar ... por que no tiene marihuana por fumar," basically translates as, "The cockroach can no longer walk because he doesn't have any marijuana to smoke." . . . There you have it. Hidden in the foreign words of a hit song, pot smoking permeated popular American culture. . . . Think Louis Armstrong burned a fatty when he played Austin's Driskill Hotel in 1931? Round his native Storyville, on Basin Street in New Orleans, marijuana had long been celebrated in music, reflecting the ancient neighborhood's Jazz Age lifestyle and red-light back streets. "Muggles" was his musical interpretation of a joint smoked in 1928, and "La Cucaracha" nested in his repertoire. He'd already been rousted for pot at least twice and spent a few days in the pokey. . . . Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon wins the prize for the oldest authenticated American song about marijuana, 1927's "Willie the Weeper." . . . "Vipers" are what the marijuana enthusiasts of the Twenties called themselves, and they wrote their anthems en masse: "Here Comes the Man With the Jive," "Viper Blues," "Jack, I'm Mellow," "Sweet Marijuana Brown," "Viper Mad," "Tea Party," "The G Man Got the T Man," "The Stuff Is Here (and It's Mellow)," "All the Jive Is Gone." . . . This exuberant musical activity was in harsh contrast to the official depiction of marijuana by the government, which had taken a dim view of Mexican immigrants. As various anti-hemp interests such as the cotton and petrochemical industries grew influential and anti-marijuana crusaders like Harry J. Anslinger gained authority, the stereotype of lily-white American teens being perverted by hopped-up, hot-blooded Mexicans was more than a mythical smokescreen. It was fantastic fodder for the Hearst press. . . . The end of Prohibition brought the Depression. The Depression brought with it a renewed campaign on the part of the United States government against marijuana. As commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry J. Anslinger declared "reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men." Once again the suppression of marijuana was a racially motivated political tool. . . . What a contrast to the country's founding fathers, who'd opened the Colonies' doors to hemp in the 1600s! The Virginia Assembly of 1619 required all farmers to grow hemp. Its strong fibers were commonly used to make clothing and sails, and it was considered legal tender in three states. That respectable history vanished almost overnight with the appearance of anti-marijuana films, most notably the church-bankrolled Tell Your Children, better known as Reefer Madness (1936). . . . Although the portrayal of marijuana as demon weed was fed to teens, the campaign had the opposite effect. Coming from the wild days of Prohibition into the Depression offered few alternatives for youthful pleasures. Their limited world was enhanced by the suggestion of something wilder happening out there. . . . "The reefer man is here!" sang out Cab Calloway.

[NOTE: Click on the link above for more of this interesting history.]

posted by LoZo 6:33 AM