The Pusher

Just saw Easy Rider again a few days ago (TCM showed a double-bill of motorcycle movies, Easy Rider following ‘Electra Glide In Blue’), which got me to thinking about ‘The Pusher’, a song that’s always fascinated me. I’ve always been a bit unclear as to the “meaning” of the line:\r\n\r\n“But I never touched nothing\r\nThat my spirit could kill”\r\n\r\nNow, idk if the lyric is sung wrong, or whether or not the writer (Hoyt Axton) intended the line to be ambiguous, but within the context through which I have always heard that lyric, it doesn’t make any sense within the context of the song. It’d have made sense for the words to be:\r\n\r\n“But I never touched nothing\r\nThat my spirit couldn’t kill”\r\n\r\nBut that’s not what John Kay sings. \r\n\r\nOr, it’d make sense to be:\r\n\r\n“I never touched nothing\r\nThat could kill my spirit”\r\n\r\nBut that doesn’t fit OR rhyme. So the lyrics have never really made much sense to me, although the “message” intended by the writer still comes through…\r\n\r\nHOWEVER, that “message” is a faulty one. Nobody needs to PUSH hard drugs in anyone. Drugs sell themselves. And people who die as a result of drug abuse have done it to themselves. That’s not intended to be harsh, life is a bitch, and depending on your mind, a person may feel a need to “medicate”, and that should NEVER be “judged” by anybody, because anybody pointing fingers at anyone, doesn’t have the slightest clue what they’re talking about. But just because a person in the throes of addiction, doesn’t mean the guy who has the drugs the addict needs is to blame…\r\n\r\nWhich was the general idea, back when drugs and long hair were the apparent dividing lines of the Generation Gap. Really idiotic “logic” was involved there lol, people were just GUESSING, and when older people who think they know everything are in places of authority, LOOK OUT.