"Relayer" wrote:
> I don't get it.acid,booze,ass,needles and guns
> are fine to mention,but
> not grass?
The original lyrics:
<snip>
"Well there're so many sinking now
You've got to keep thinking
You can make it thru these waves
Acid, booze, and ass
Needles, guns, and grass
Lots of laughs, lots of laughs
Everybody's saying that hell's the hippest way to go
Well I don't think so
But I'm gonna take a look around it though"
Blue was released in 1971, a time when the attitude of
a girl from the prairie might still be a bit
conservative, or at least not as "worldly" as it would
later become. In the above verse, Joni's observation
seems to be that people are being a little too
cavalier about certain things that they might do well
to consider more seriously. They're "sinking":
wasting away and dying due to dangerous living and
excess. They're going to hell -- and it's the hippest
way to go! Joni disagrees (she's thinking, "Lot of
laughs -- yeah, right!), but ... she'll check it out.
Three years later, maybe she's done just that -- or at
least a little of it.
Regardless, at just about any concert in 1974 (save
for perhaps a classical music performance), there was
always a TON (maybe literally!) of grass being smoked.
By then (if not before), it was obvious to most that
grass was quite different from acid or booze or
heroin. (Nevermind the rest, and nevermind the
contribution of marijuana to short-term memory loss or
couch potato syndrome; at least no one was leaping out
of windows or beating their spouse or stealing to
afford their next fix because of pot.)
Joni was smart to sing "Needles, guns, and ... Lots of
laughs, lots of laughs." She took into consideration
that many in her audience were toking away and no
doubt would've been put off by a "put down" of their
favorite herb.
Lori
near DC
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