Of Welk and Weed

After scoring a top ten hit with “One Toke Over the Line,” California duo Brewer & Shipley moved to rural Missouri. Perhaps it was the complete failure on the part of the mainstream to grasp the subversive nature of the famous song that prompted a move from sunny California to the not-so-sunny (certainly not today) Midwest. Hell, if I wrote a song about smoking pot that begins with a line that essentially means “God damn, I’m high,” and it ended up being performed in a preternaturally happy manner by an old-young couple named Gale and Dale on Welk, I’d wanna pack it in, too.

“One Toke Over the Line” as seen on The Lawrence Welk Show