Written for Song Lyric Sunday –
“Making Informed Choices About Substances Matters”.
This is my response to the challenge.
This week at Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday, the theme is “Making Informed Choices About Substances Matters”. Our challenge? To write about a song related to drugs, chemical substances, prescription medications, alcohol, or tobacco, suggested by yours truly. There’s no lack of songs on this subject and countless points of view. Since there is more than enough sorrow, darkness and evil in the world, I’ve decided to approach the theme in a more lighthearted manner.
The image below could have been our apartment, circa 1973. We were young, free, and we knew how to party. The turning point came in 1977 when we decided to start a family. We were ready to settle down and focus on what was important and what we wanted for the rest of our lives. We look back on those early years of concerts and partying with only good memories. For us, it was an invaluable learning experience …. a formative period which helped us become good parents with an open and honest line of communication with our kids and grandkids. We lived life and survived to tell the story. No regrets.
Born in Wilmington, Delaware, George Thorogood is a blues-rock singer and guitarist renowned for his high-energy “boogie-blues” style. Influenced by artists such as Elmore James, Amos Milburn, and Chuck Berry, he began his career as a solo acoustic performer in the early 70s before forming The Destroyers in 1973. The band gained major recognition as a supporting act for the Rolling Stones’ 1981 US tour and became known for their “50/50 Tour”, playing 50 shows in 50 states in 50 days. In 2012, George Thorogood was named one of the “50 Most Influential Delawareans of the Past 50 Years”. While not in the R&R Hall of Fame, despite a career spanning over 50 years, his guitar was placed on permanent display in its “Legends of Rock” exhibit. Contrary to popular opinion, George Thorogood is a teetotaler who does not drink alcohol or use drugs, despite his reputation for blues-rock party anthems. He has maintained a clean lifestyle throughout his career to focus on music, performance, and family.
“One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” is a classic blues drinking song written by Rudy Toombs and famously recorded by Amos Milburn (1953) and John Lee Hooker (1966), before becoming a blues-rock staple for George Thorogood in 1977. Thorogood’s version is a medley combining John Lee Hooker’s “House Rent Boogie” with “One Bourbon……”, which tells the story of a man who loses his job, can’t pay the rent, is evicted by his landlady, and goes to a bar to drink his sorrows away until closing time. Things are not looking good so what better way to deal with the unpleasantness of reality than by getting shloshed?
This is “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” by George Thorogood
Steve Miller was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1943 to a musical family; his mother was a jazz singer, and his father was a recording engineer. Guitar legend Les Paul was his godfather, and bluesman T-Bone Walker taught him to play guitar. Before achieving mainstream success, Miller and his band explored blues and psychedelic rock, initially forming as the Steve Miller Blues Band in San Francisco. In 1966, the Steve Miller Band was formed and gained prominence in the 1970s with hits like “The Joker”, “Abracadabra”, and “Jet Airliner”. Steve Miller was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2016, recognizing his contributions to rock music.
“The Joker” is a 1973 blues-rock hit that saved Steve Miller’s career, marking a shift from psychedelic rock to smooth, commercial pop-rock. The song, which reached #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1974, is famous for its “wolf whistle” guitar, and features lyrics referencing Miller’s previous personas of “Space Cowboy” and “Gangster of Love”.The song popularized the nonsensical word “pompatus” (often spelled “pompitous”), which Miller picked up from a 1950s R&B song. The line “I really love your peaches wanna shake your tree” is a nod to the 1953 song “Lovey Dovey” by The Clovers. “The Joker” is a classic rock hit, widely celebrated as a 1970s anthem for marijuana use. Miller described the song as a catchy tune written during a “hush hush” era, as marijuana references were still taboo in 1973. “It was just a song about this Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer kind of character …. a rascally guy who’s just out and about having fun and not taking anything too seriously,” said Miller.
This is “The Joker” by Steve Miller Band
My final song this week is the “No No Song”, a 1974 hit by Ringo Starr from his album Goodnight Vienna. The song was written by Hoyt Axton and David Jackson after a rough night of drinking, creating a humorous anti-excess narrative. While the song is anti-drug, Ringo was not sober at the time of the recording and did not clean up until the late 1980s. Fellow musician and friend Harry Nilsson provided backing vocals to the track. “No No Song” was released as a single in the US in 1975, becoming Ringo Starr’s 7th top-ten hit, peaking at #3 in the US and #1 in Canada.
This is “No No Song” by Ringo Starr
Big thanks to Jim Adams for hosting another great Song Lyric Sunday this week and every week. Be sure to follow the link and check out Jim’s site.
Thanks for stopping by and listening to some great music. I hope you enjoyed the theme for this week as well as the information and songs I featured.
That’s all she wrote, kids. See you on the flip side. 😎
NAR©2026
Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thank you for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.
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