As the strange, paranoid month of 4/20 comes to a close, let’s pass it over to Ben Harper to play us out. I still think this is one of the great pothead songs, a clarion call for community and self-actualization, all the affirmations of the cannabis plant wrapped up in a slinky riff that’s easy enough for even the laziest college freshman to learn on an acoustic guitar.
Cannabis has played an important role in my life since the first time I zoned out completely on bright green trees and cartoonish outlines of objects sometime in high school. It totally blew my mind and got me thinking about the electric fringes of everything: art, music, cooking, writing, the whole of the creative universe. There were years when I spent too much time with it, years when I stepped away from it entirely, and years when I met it only occasionally in lamplit bedrooms or in heady crowds with live music cresting off a nearby stage, all reverential and giddy-like. But it’s always been there, one of life’s great treasures, a wonderful plant that opens doors and bends sunlight just so.
Sandy 