While some of Weezer’s songs have passed into our collective memory (“Buddy Holly,” “Beverly Hills”) and have no intention of leaving anytime soon, others should never have been released in the first place (we’re looking at you, “Heart Songs”). And even if the band’s recent efforts haven’t lived up to its classic debut and history of hits, this is still a band with the power to surprise us. Tucked beneath its Cheap Trick riffs and nerd-friendly lyrics, Weezer managed to record some of the best power-pop anthems of the past 15 years. We come not to bury Rivers Cuomo, but to praise him. That this is earlier than most of the songs on this list just shows what Airplane fans have always known: the band was never afraid to take risks, and was nearly always well ahead of the curve.Weezer has always gotten more than its fair share of contempt. Slick evokes the sentiment that ultimately drove what has become a generally successful legalization effort: There were a half a million people on the lawn Jefferson Airplane, the first major band to sign up to play the 1969 Woodstock Festival (and whose signing opened up the floodgates for signing other major acts), pays tribute to that most celebrated of all rock concerts: Not only is the Grace Slick-penned masterpiece a celebration of marijuana and psychedelic culture (mentioning famed LSD lab-man, Owsley), it is also a political attack on Richard Nixon for his efforts to prevent marijuana from crossing over the southern border, referring to Tricky Dick thusly: Leaving out Jefferson Airplane’s “Mexico” is a sin. No doubt he’d be glad to see how far we’ve come. Peter Tosh waxes poetic about the good that marijuana can do, urges you not to criticize it, and promises “legalize it, and I will advertise it.” Sure enough, he recorded public-service announcements for its legalization, which appear on the expanded CD reissue of the album. Of all the reggae songs about marijuana, this one is the clearest call to action. The story of scoring a bag and hitting the liquor store has been played out across the country by teenagers and young adults for generations. Luniz’s “I Got 5 On It” is perhaps the most famous weed song of all time. The version most people know is the hit by Musical Youth, but since they were all children, they cleaned it up to “Pass The Dutchie” and made it about a different kind of pot: the kind you cook in. One of the most infectious of all reggae odes to the herb, this song – appropriately – sounds both spiritual and good-timey. But the song does nail a certain situation, where the right supplies are a must for attracting the opposite sex. The story goes that Cuomo isn’t actually much of a stoner, and really wrote the song under the influence of Ritalin and tequila. We went with “Homegrown” because it’s still catchy after all these years.Īs long as Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo has his hash pipe, there’ll always be killer pop hooks and dry humor in store. Neil Young has two stoner anthems to his credit, “Roll Another Number For The Road” and this tune, possibly the only good-time songs to emerge during his “dark” era of Tonight’s The Night and On The Beach. It just goes to show: The Beatles were generations ahead of their time from the very beginning. Though many LSD devotees of the 60s were convinced that “Got to Get You Into My Life” from Revolver was a song about a psychedelic experience, Paul McCartney confirmed that the song was nothing more than a cheeky ode to weed. – Sam ArmstrongĢ7: The Beatles – Got to Get You Into My Life He spits, “Still blazin, still blazin, still blazin/Cause ganja power it’s so amazin/give me the strength and protection, keep praisin.” Keep praisin’, indeed. The song finds Wiz – now a ganja entrepreneur – waxing poetic on the wonders of grass. “Still Blazin” is a song about weed from Wiz Khalifa’s most overtly weed-centric album, Kush and Orange Juice. If not, though, a listen to the classic weed song’s first lines spell it out clear as day: “You know I got two states of mind – stoned and asleep/First I hit the sweet leaf, and then I have nice dreams.” Must be nice. If you didn’t know exactly what Kottonmouth Kings were discussing on “4-2-0,” then you may have been born under a rock. Some stations and channels would play “joint” backward when he sung, “let’s roll another joint,” while others would eliminate the word “roll.” NO matter their efforts, though, it was hard to distract from what Petty meant. When Tom Petty first released “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” censors tried desperately to obscure what he was talking about. 30: Tom Petty – You Don’t Know How It Feels