Looking back, it seems like everyone involved in the entertainment industry between the 1960s and the 1980s was under the influence of one substance or another. As a result, it is easy to believe that classic rock songs are packed to the brim with drug references. In fact, it’s so easy to believe that many see drug references in songs that, according to those who wrote them, have none.
Today, countless listeners will hear the songs below, look to their friends, and say something like, “Do you know what this song is really about?” Then, they’ll point out the “obvious” drug references in the lyrics. However, the rock and folk artists behind these classics probably weren’t thinking about getting high when they penned them.
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This one is a bit of a stretch. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers released “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” in 1993 as a single from Greatest Hits. However, the song is more than 30 years old, and Petty is a classic rock icon. Countless listeners also believe that this song is about drugs. So, it fits here.
“Mary Jane” is a slang term for cannabis. As a result, many believe that the song is about weed. It wouldn’t be the first time Petty sang about the devil’s lettuce, after all. “You Don’t Know How It Feels” explicitly says, “Let’s get to the point, let’s roll another joint.” So, it’s not really a stretch.
According to Songfacts, this song is open for interpretation. “My take on it is it can be whatever you want it to be. A lot of people think it’s a drug reference, and if that’s what you want to think, it very well could be,” said Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell. “But it could also be a goodbye love song,” he added. In 2010, Petty told Mojo magazine, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance is the same girl [from “American Girl”] with a few more hard knocks.”
This classic Beatles song has to be about drugs, right? “Lucy” is a slang term for LSD. The song shares its initials with the substance. On top of that, everyone knows that while other classic rock stars were nose-deep in Peruvian marching powder, the Beatles were doing psychedelic drugs and writing songs about them. At least, that’s the popular belief.
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” isn’t just not about LSD. It has incredibly wholesome origins. John Lennon drew inspiration for the song from a painting by his son. “Julian came in one day with a picture about a school friend of his named Lucy. He had sketched in some stars in the sky and called it Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” Lennon said of the song.
This song isn’t really rock, but it’s a classic, and plenty of people believe there’s no way it’s not about drugs. Countless listeners believe that the song is telling them to take a puff of the “magic dragon,” which is, they say, a secretive way of referring to the devil’s lettuce. Nope. This song is more straightforward than that. It’s about a dragon.
Peter Yarrow co-wrote “Puff the Magic Dragon” with Leonard Lipton when they were college students. “That wasn’t the case. It couldn’t have been,” Yarrow said about the rumored secret meaning of the song. “In 1959, I was 20 years old. I was at Cornell, and in 1959, nobody but the folks in North Beach, about whom I know nothing, had any familiarity [with marijuana]. The closest we got to being desolate as young people was having a drink. We were square in square times, and I was squarer than square. I don’t believe there was a person at Cornell that smoked grass in the era,” he explained.
Many folk rock fans believe that this classic Bob Dylan song is about doing drugs. More specifically, they believe it is about smoking marijuana. The line “Everybody must get stoned” seems like a call for everyone to burn one. Then, there’s the fact that if you multiply the numbers in the title, you get 420.
“I have never and never will write a drug song,” Dylan said when asked about the rumored meaning of the song. The “stoning” in the song refers to criticism. The real meaning behind the song is that no matter what you do, someone will have something negative to say about it. “Everybody must get stoned” is an assurance that unwarranted criticism is a universal problem.
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