Jukebox In My Head

I was at home in Kansas City, must have been 1970 or 1971, flipped on the television. It was The Lawrence Welk Show. Myron Floren introduced Gail and Dale to sing one of the "newer songs," and they performed, in perfect harmonies, Brewer & Shipley's "One Toke Over the Line."

Welk came out afterwards and called the song "a modern spiritual," which was enough to make me guffaw even harder. I couldn't believe it. Aunt Nez, our guardian, used to make us watch Lawrence Welk while scoffing at our predilection for rock'n'roll. This was fair retribution.

Brewer & Shipley were based in Kansas City when they had their day. I was pretty proud that two local long hairs had the biggest doper hit of the period. One summer I worked for a farmer's co-op near the tiny village of Staplehurst, Nebraska, where Tom Shipley grew up. I talked often with his mother, who ran the general store in Staplehurst in 1970.

The Welk Show memory became the basis for one of my favorite "strange juxtaposition" stories: an obvious drug song misread as a spiritual on the Welk show, of all places. Welk's people, in a sincere attempt to hook with the younger audience, might have passed over "toke," but they sure as hell knew what "sweet Jesus" meant.

I told lots of friends the story. After awhile, I began to wonder if it were true or if I had been toking myself and perhaps just imagined it. Michael Brewer, who co-wrote the song with Shipley, confirmed it during an interview for the Kansas City Times in the early 1980s.

And there it stood until last week. I was catching up on the latest posts on my friend David Menconi's weblog at the Raleigh News & Observer, and I found this.

Good old Youtube. Thanks for the memory, dude. "Uh-one and uh-two."

While we're at it, check out Welk in another episode spoofing Sonny Bono.