10 Songs That Definitely Don't Mean What You Thought

8. Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) - Kenny Rogers & The First Edition

It's hard to believe that Kenny Rogers, of country music and rotisserie chicken fame, was ever hip, but, for a period in the 1950s and 1960s, he was taken pretty seriously by some of the most popular people of the time. After failing with a rockabilly group and a jazz quartet, Rogers formed a new group, The First Edition. The group went on to experiment with different genres of music, trying to find the sound that fit them best. While they achieved their biggest successes with country/folk songs like "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town" and "Something's Burning," the song that put them on the map was their first, the psychedelic "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)." The tune's success came slowly at first, but after a performance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the song rocketed to the top of the Billboard charts. It was Jimi Hendrix's favorite song of all time, and, more currently, the Coen brothers have revived it by using the song as the musical backdrop for Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski's dream sequence in The Big Lebowski. Judging by the song's fans and the way the song's been used in the media, it seems like the common interpretation of the song is that it's a celebration of drugs and their use. In fact, the lyrics were meant to imply just the opposite. The lyrics, written by country music star Mickey Newbury, were written in attempt to dissuade young people from experimenting with LSD. Newbury tried to get his message across in a non-preachy way by summing up an addict's life in the grimmest way possible while still being subtle; lyrics that illustrate his intentions include those about one's soul falling into a dark hole and then falling in after it, getting so paranoid that it drives one crazy, and being so out of touch with reality that one drives off a dead end road and suffers in a car accident. After Jerry Lee Lewis (of "Great Balls of Fire" fame) rejected the song, Kenny Rogers discovered the tune and decided that it would make a good psychedelic song. Rogers and his band filled the song's musical tracks with every psychedelic-rock cliche that they could think of, turning the anti-drug ditty into a drug anthem. It was a smart move on Rogers' and The First Edition's part; the song's success essentially bought Rogers and the Edition the rest of their careers. One can't help but wonder, however, what Newbury thought of the final result.