"Because I Got High" is a song by American rapper
Afroman from
the album of the same name. The lyrics of the song humorously describe how
cannabis use is degrading the narrator's quality of life.[1] The song, which was written in only a few minutes, rose from obscurity to popularity after it was circulated around the Internet and was featured on The Howard Stern Show.
The song explains how the narrator "got high" with the result of not taking responsibility for anything. Examples include neglecting to clean his room, failing his
college class (which he intends to take the semester after), getting fired from his job (leading him to resort to selling
marijuana for a living), missing
court dates, having his paycheck for that week
garnished due to missed
child support payments, gambling away his car payment, becoming a
paraplegic as the result of a police chase, and being left by his wife for neglecting to have sex with her. The singer then sums up that, as a result of his constant reliance on cannabis, he lost custody of his children, lost his wife, and ended up
homeless and "sleeping on the sidewalk". He ultimately decides to end the song, and admits that he is "singing the whole thing wrong, because [he is] high". The extended version features another verse afterward: "Well my name is Afroman, and I'm from
East Palmdale / And all the tumbleweed I be smoking is bomb as hell /
I don't believe in Hitler, that's what I said / So all of you skins... please
give me more head" (the last two lines are a reference to
John Lennon's "
God" and a pun on "
skinheads", respectively[citation needed]). This version ends with Afroman saying, "We ain't gonna sell none of these motherfuckin' albums cuz... let's go back to Marshall Durbin and hang some more chickens cuz, fuck it", followed by "Fuck the corporate world, biatch!".
On the album Mobilize by punk band
Anti-Flag, after several minutes of silence on the album's end track, a friend of the band called Spaz can be heard singing parts of the song with Anti-Flag.
Afroman re-recorded the song with new lyrics for his 2009 album Frobama Head of State. A second re-recording of the song, called the "Positive Remix", was released by Afroman through YouTube on October 15, 2014 as part of a collaboration with
Weedmaps and
NORML. In contrast to the original version, the lyrics of this version deal with the positive effects of marijuana legalization.[5][1]
A song with a similar theme was released by Detroit Junior in 1980, titled "If I Hadn't Been High."[6]
Parodies
Bob Rivers included a Christmas-themed version, Be Claus I Got High, on the 2002 album White Trash Christmas, the fifth in Rivers's line of Christmas parody albums.
The controversial parody artist
Rucka Rucka Ali made a version of the song called "Because I'm White" about stereotypes of White Americans and
white privilege in general.[8]
A parody was made about British politician
Michael Gove after his scandal involving cocaine use.[9]
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
References
^
ab"Afroman's Because I Got High gets pro-marijuana remake". The Guardian. October 17, 2014. Retrieved October 13, 2018. Afroman's novelty song which once sluggishly lamented the lethargy and uselessness of weed consumption, has been given a rework to promote the legalisation of marijuana.