(Warning: Contains rock lyrics from 40 years ago)
Some music goes beyond the sound that comes out of your speakers. From time to time, these sounds define a cultural or political movement. In a few cases, they become the soundtrack for a generation.
Neil Young wailing, “four dead in Ohio,” still conjures memories of a black and white photograph of a young girl on one knee, panic stricken, next to the face-down body of a student shot dead by the National Guard at Kent State.
“The Pusher,” written by Hoyt Axton, and growled by John Kay over a grinding Steppenwolf beat brings images of Easy Rider and a drug culture that slapped America’s conservatism right between their eyes and the sound machine. This is where my intentions went off the tracks.
I started out to write this piece about Steppenwolf. They cranked out several seminal songs in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s (Magic Carpet Ride, Born To Be Wild). “The Pusher” sounds like a Steppenwolf song. No surprise there. But knowing Hoyt Axton wrote those words is an interesting contradiction. At least to me.
Growing up, I saw Hoyt Axton as sort of a folksy character like Glenn Campbell or Mac Davis. Then, when you see that he wrote “The Pusher,” it kind of twists in your head a little. I remember the notorious lyrics (“God damn the pusher man”) and I remember Hoyt Axton. I just can’t put the two memories together. John Kay’s voice, yes. Hoyt? No way.
Hoyt Axton wrote a lot of song you have heard for 50 years. He wrote “Joy To The World” (as in Three Dog Night’s “Jeremiah was a bullfrog…”) for god’s sake. He wrote “Heartbreak Hotel” for Elvis and “Greenback Dollar” for the Kingston Trio. He wrote songs covered by Joan Baez, Linda Ronstadt and John Denver. He wrote some pretty pop stuff. And then he wrote, “God damn the pusherman.” That is some first class contradiction with a true Southern bent. Got to like that.
Hoyt was on an episode of Bonanza. That’s pretty white bread. He was in the movies: “Gremlins” and “Black Stallion.” He sang the “Head For the Mountains” in Busch beer commercials and “The Ballad of Big Mac” for McDonald’s. He seemed like the most innocent of innocents. Still, “The Pusher” is not a Sunday school song, so Hoyt had done some living. I just had never heard anything about it. Never thought about it. Then I started digging around about Steppenwolf and saw that Hoyt had written that song. I am still digesting it.
Johnny Cash had some of the same depth in his life and career. Many remember Cash as a country singer and even a gospel singer. They forget his rough start, rock and roll and drug use. He was real. And he never tried to hide it. He was never more real than when he sang Trent Resnor’s Nine Inch Nails, “Hurt,” in a way that made you believe that he understood that word better than anyone. And Cash was in his 70’s.
I thought I knew about Hoyt Axton. Hardly.
He died in 1999 of a heart attack in Montana. He was 61. He never fully recovered from a stroke in 1997, the same year he and his wife were arrested for possession of a pound of marijuana (according to Wikipedia). In reading about it, I couldn’t help but remember the first line to “The Pusher.” I can hear John Kay singing it. And now I can see Hoyt Axton living it.
Perhaps I’ll write about Steppenwolf later.
About Terry Taylor
Terry Taylor has worked at nearly every major agency in the industry, including Chiat/Day, DMB&B, BBDO, Ogilvy & Mather, Earle Palmer Brown and Arnold. Besides national awards in Communication Arts, D&AD, Clios and Addies, his portfolio boasts the likes of Nissan, Pepsi, SAP, Budweiser, Twix, Virginia Lottery, Barbados and Burger King. Perhaps you’ve seen his work on the Super Bowl, or his recent novel on Twitter, or his picture in the post office. Okay, that’s not him.
