Dick Van Dyke's and Bette Midler's Marijuana Songs

With everyone celebrating the 100th birthday of comedy legend Dick Van Dyke, I found this clip of Van Dyke performing a marvelous version of  "If You're a Viper"* while draggin' on something. 

I dreamed about a reefer five feet long
A bit immense, but not too strong
You'll be high, but not for long
If you're a Viper.

Penned by Stuff Smith and recorded with his band Onyx Club Boys as You'se a Viper in 1926, it was covered the following year by Rosetta Howard with the Harlem Hatfats, and many other acts over the years, including a wonderful version by Fats Waller in 1943. Smith also wrote "I's a Muggin" and "Here Comes the Man with the Jive" in the days before the Marijuana Tax Act effectively made cannabis illegal nationwide in 1937, the same year Nathanael West's heroine Faye Greener feminized the song, dubbing herself the Queen (not the King) of Everything who's "gotta get high before I swing" in "The Day of the Locust." 

*The video misidentifies the song Van Dyke sings as "Viper's Drag," a stride piano number by Fats Waller. According to Wikipedia, "Viper's Drag" was written as a dance tune for a ragtime dance called a slow drag, often shortened to "drag" by songwriters of the day. The song has been performed countless artists, including Cab Calloway, who recorded a big band swing version of the tune in 1930, and Judy Carmichael, who recorded it for her Grammy award-nominated Two-Handed Stride on the Progressive label in 1980. There are two versions by New Orleans piano masters Henry Butler and Allen Toussaint. 

We also celebrate Bette Midler, who turned 80 on December 1, and her recording of "Marahuana" from her Songs for the New Depression album.  

Written by Arthur Johnston and Sam Conslow, this classic was sung by Gertrude Michael in the 1934 pre-code movie "Murder at the Vanities" in an elaborate dance number that apparently was quite the scandal mostly due to its nearly-nude women dancers. Immediately, the lyric was  changed to "Sweet Lotus Blossom" and Julia Lee's 1943 recording by that name is included an many a "reefer" song complication. 

The original lyric was brought back in the 1970s by Midler, accompanied by her music director Barry Manilow on piano. She recorded it on her 1976 "Songs for a New Depression" album and  performed it during her 1999 Divine Miss Millenium tour (shown). When she performed it in the 70s, she reportedly feigned hallucinations as she danced with two "Doobie Brothers." "In the '70s, Midler's self-professed fondness for marijuana was legendary and unashamed, as was her objection to its criminalised status," wrote Australia's The Age. Concert video from 1977 has her joking about her hardcore fans saying, "Pass the Brownies!" 

This New Year's Eve 2025/26 is the 50th anniversary of the time Midler reportedly planned to tape a joint underneath every seat of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles for her NYE show, to celebrate California's pending decriminalization law. Her staff was said to have rolled 1800 joints before word leaked out and she was talked out of the magic moment by her lawyers and the LA district attorney. Instead she dropped her top at midnight and an art student altered the "Hollywood" sign to read "Hollyweed." Six weeks later, on February 15, 1976, Midler bailed seven members of her touring entourage out of jail after they were arrested on cocaine and marijuana possession charges. 

In advance of her Emmy-winning TV special 1977, TV Guide wrote a feature article on a toned-down Midler that ended, "Even her dad ought to be able to watch her perform this time." A career in Disney films followed; she did the talk show circuit this year to tease a sequel to Hocus Pocus. 

Though she said in 2005 that she hasn't smoked pot in 25 years, Bette shamanicaly imbibes cannabis on film as Mel Gibson's psychotherapist in "What Women Want" (2000)—but you won't see that part of the scene on TNT, where it is censored. In 2008's "The Women," Meg Ryan discovers her husband is cheating on her, and goes to a yoga retreat where she encounters Midler—who has procured a joint. (Though Ryan does imbibe in the movie proper, you'll have to go to the deleted scenes on the DVD to hear her saying "I'm really stoned." After this scene, her character finds her way to her center.)  In 2013, Midler was a hit in her one-woman show "I'll Eat You Last" playing the pot-loving superagent Sue Mengers. After a successful run on Broadway, she played Mengers to sold-out shows in Los Angeles and regaled Jay Leno with tales of her past pot use and Sue's too.