4/20: Bilboard’s 20 Smoking Songs About…Weed
20. “Because I Got High”
Afro Man
Most Smokin’ Lyric: “I was gonna clean my room until I got high/ I gonna get up and find the broom but then I got high/My room is still messed up and I know why (Yeah, hey!)/ Because I got high, because I got high, because I got high.”
Potency: ONE. At first, “Because I Got High” sounds like a fun, harmless joke about how smoking weed leads to unproductivity. But when Afro Man’s problems get more and more serious — he goes from cutting class to losing his wife and kids — this song just becomes a buzzkill.
19. “Hash Pipe”
Weezer
Most Smokin’ Lyric: “You’ve got your problems, I’ve got my ass wide/ You’ve got your big G’s, I’ve got my hash pipe.”
Potency: FOUR. After a prolonged break following the release of “Pinkerton,” Weezer came roaring back with this feisty first single from the Green Album. Among the bizarre lyrics — “The knee-stocking flavor is a favorite treat/Of men that don’t bother with the taste of a teat” — is frontman Rivers Cuomo’s snarling defense of relaxing with some hash.
18. “How High”
Method Man and Redman
Most Smokin’ Lyric: “Look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane/ It’s the funk doctor spock smokin buddha on a train/ How high? So high that I can kiss the sky/ (Up, up to the sky!)”
Potency: FIVE. Though it only has a few literal weed references, this mid-’90s rap gem was the original theme song for one of the greatest stoner music duos to date, Method Man & Redman. To witness them perform it in concert today is to see burly security guards hopelessly attempt to put out dozens of simultaneously lit-up joints.
17. “You Don’t Know How It Feels”
Tom Petty
Most Smokin’ Lyric: “Let’s get to the point/ Let’s roll another joint/ And let’s head on down the road/ There’s somewhere I got to go.”
Potency: FIVE. The rock ‘n’ roll equivalent to Dr. Dre’s “The Next Episode,” Petty’s hit isn’t really about weed. The one line that is, however, is just too memorable to go unacknowledged. Radio stations famously censored it, but that hasn’t stopped anyone from shouting it out loud in their car.