Brewer and Shipley: One Toke Over The Line

This was not my original selection for today, but yesterday, a friend of mine brought up Brewer and Shipley’s only Top 40 hit. Peaking at #10 in 1971, “One Toke over the Line” was from Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley’s third album “Tarkio.”

While “Toke” was a drug culture reference, a number of people who were not aware of this connotation thought that the reference to “Sweet Jesus” qualified it as a gospel song. When I worked for WEMM in Huntington, WV from 1977 to 1981, we had a local gospel album from a group from Hurricane, WV. They featured the song on their album. Even Lawrence Welk called it a modern day spiritual after it was performed on his show. It sounds like Larry was hitting the bubbly a little too much.