Song of the Day 4/20: Afroman, “Because I Got High”

Happy 4/20! I hope everyone Zooms their celebrations.

Afroman (real name: Joseph Foreman) wasn’t exactly advocating marijuana use with his 2001 hit. The lyrics, a string of bad decisions, started with a real-life incident.

“I woke up real ambitious — and then my buddy, who I ain’t seen in a long time, came by. I told him, ‘Man, you gotta go.’ He was like, ‘Well, let’s just blow one right quick.’ ‘OK!’ So we got to smoking, laughing and talking. Had a great time but didn’t do nothin’. And then it hit me. ‘I was gonna clean my room until I got high.’ And then I was thinking about other stuff that happened because I got high on different occasions.” Foreman said he finished the song in about five minutes.

The song’s hit potential wasn’t immediately obvious. “Some of my immediate friends were like, ‘Yo, this is funny for us in the garage, drinking beer, but this ain’t gonna fly.'” Turns out it was funny to everyone else, too, which made it a viral hit. A college tour led to lots of downloads on Napster, then wide circulation after Howard Stern featured it on his radio show. It eventually reached No. 25 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and was used in “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” leading to this Kevin Smith-directed video.

Afroman rerecorded the song in conjunction with NORML and Weedmaps in 2014 with new pro-legalization lyrics.