it is an AWESOME JAM groovy

I too was a little amazed and disappointed in the use of “fun” in connection with this song; in the apparent cluelessness about the heroin deaths by overdose (not strokes or heart attacks) in those days, or even what a pusher was; and by the unintentional irony in using the word dope to describe one aspect of the music. I know… “OK,boomer.” I realize they are young and weren’t around in those days. Even so, this is an opportunity to learn.

It started so free and easy - young people, good people, sharing weed at cost, every once in a while someone would come back from California with Orange Sunshine and Purple Owsley that they'd trade for mushroom tea, mescalin, peyote buttons to take west. It was NOT for the money. They were the Dream Dealers. That changed when people learned how much money they could make off dope and the most lucrative was heroin and cocaine. Those were the pushers. Suddenly, people were dying like everywhere. The "curse of the northeast" was visited on the dreamers. A pusher was an evil. They'd lace the pot with heroin and tell people it was "michoacán", "tie sticks" or whatever exotic never-seen-in-that-area-before smoke, to get people to "step up." There's very few "stoned" like a heroin high. There's few things as addictive and deadly as heroin's high. I don't think Axton was cursing when he wrote this song - I think he was seeing friends die and praying.

@@lambokarabeekian6192 i think its a great FUN jam here is a TISSUE friend

@@bronsonosborne3962 To each his own I guess. Thanks for the tissue, bud. My allergies are killing me.😉

This is a great memory. Our parents had to put up with a lot of the music coming from our turntables! My dad was less than tolerant.

Pretty sure every teenager back then had a record or two flung across the room. good times. 🤣😅😆

I was 17.

So beautiful that your mom loved you enough to admit to her mistake

seems like a normal response for those days.

Hoyt Axton also wrote Joy To The World and Never Been To Spain, which Three Dog Night covered and had mega hits with in the 1970 and 1971.. Super talented singer/songwriter and actor!!

@@roncypert8255 yes indeed, Hoyt Axton was definitely a very talented singer/songwriter and actor. I believe he was the father in "Gremlins" and, in the TV show "WKRP In Cincinnati" he played a former boyfriend of Loni Anderson's from her old hometown. Another Three Dog Night song he wrote was "Never Been To Spain"

Agreed on all. Add Foggy Mental Breakdown to the list.

Monster is a very under rated album.

"Don't Step on the Grass Sam" is one of my favorites. I'm glad somebody finally recommended it.

Well said 😎👍

My mother had a similar response. She took a sewing needle and went all through this track so it could not be played on the stereo. I mean, god damn!

Hey sundayze, I can't believe Alex gave this a b+, jeez, what's wrong with the guy, your so right, absolutely S tier for me as well, still gives me goosebumps when I hear those guitars, this is why good rock music is so powerful, and timeless

Not just Monster, but the entire 3 sets. 'Monster / Suicide / America' Still relevant today.

@sundayze I managed to keep my dad from hearing it. I became really adept at making the leap across my room to get to my little stereo & turn the volume down at the very start of the song. Didn't matter what I was doing...putting my makeup on, getting dressed, playing with the dog...my self protective instincts were strong. I didn't really fear an ass whoopin' but getting yelled at by my dad was almost as bad.👀

Our Mom said that's a terrible song. We tried to tell her it was anti-drug, but she couldn't get past the swearing.

I was going to request that! Great choice.

Beat me to it as well!!

Love all the suggestions for "Snowblind Friend." I'm on that bandwagon too!

Hoyt was a top-tier songwriter. So many covers of his songs were big hits for the cover band! Such wit, though. I think of him sorta like the Mark Twain of songwriting. He and John Prine.

Great song.

I know ! ! A+ or higher !!! 😎👍

Yeah very weird, he says he loves it "it's fun? I don't get that. I think it's serious and epic and an A+!!

@Barbara Roberts It's a great song in its own right, but rose to an s tier, in my eyes, for its perfect use in Easy Rider.

@@rundoetx Yeah I remember that and the movie..

@@rundoetx "Long ago and far away" I ran into John Kay at the LA airport, as I was sitting with my sister waiting for her boarding flight to Europe, we saw John Kay, sitting with someone. We tried not to look or make a big deal of it, as in Los Angeles you just don't do that, you act casual. When I hugged my sister good-bye outside, as I watched her board her flight and go up the plane steps, John Kay just started walking with me back to the inside of the airport, I said "I thought you were going on that flight", he said "no just seeing a friend off like you did". I said she was my sister and we just chatted and he said "coffee"? I said "sure okay". So we chatted at one of the little restaurants in the airport, I asked him why he always wore his sun glasses all the time "inside and outside", so he then took them off and I said "OH you have beautiful eyes" we laughed. I told him I loved his song "The pusher" but I also like this ballad he sang called "Tenderness" and he said 'yeah I had a GF who talked with me "about treating women tenderly" and I said "yes, I agree, which is why I like the song and your voice". I told John how I had seen and met a lot of famous "rockers" in LA, and how I had met Jim Morrison also, as I had two girlfriends that used to hang out with Jim and the doors at Venice Beach. He asked me what I thought of Jim Morrison, I told him my "few chats with Jim were very different than what most people said about him, I found him very "gracious and gentlemen like" and how we had talked about poets we liked, Art, Mythology".. John Kay said "it's nice for people to meet some of "we rockers" and to find out some of us are not who so many think we are"", I agreed. He asked me if I needed a "ride home" I said no I had my car, (don't think I would have accepted anyway you never know) I lived in "the valley", He walked me to my car kissed my cheek said "Barbara nice meeting and chatting with you, you are one Foxy lady"... I watched him walk off and hail a cab and off he went! Having a photographic memory is good in some ways but not in others.

It’s personal today for sure!

I am old enough to remember that the late 60s was an experiement in new freedoms that gave way to excess and social ills as well as learning new frontiers. Todays young are on the same path and will find this as well.

my sister was a heroin dealer and user.. she said ' don't you ever try it. too bad she did not take her own advice. she got clean after years of use cancer got her

If the shade of music was of this, imagine where we are! 🤍🕊

Yes 🙌 sad times indeed

I remember exactly where I was when I heard this 🤘

John Kay was smart, after splitting with his bandmates he let them keep the name Steppenwolf and the right to play his songs in concerts, but he would keep all of the future royalties...well here comes cassettes, CDs and streaming services = made him very wealthy. His old bandmates wanted a cut of the new royalties and sue John, but they lose in court.

The Greatest Hits Album is absolutely killer.

So which cover is the definitive version?

@@enderjed Steppenwolf's is the cover version. Country artist Hoyt Axton wrote the song, but they used Steppenwolf's version in the movie Easy Rider.

@enderjed "The Pusher" was originally written and performed by Hoyt Axton but the Steppenwolf version is the definitive version. Just like Hendix / Dylan for All Along the Watchtower... Skynyrd / JJ Cale for Call Me the Breeze... Linda Ronstatd / Everly Brothers for When Will I Be Loved

I think this is a great theme idea for A&A: tracking a song through time by comparing the original to the best covers. I'm thinking of "Baby It's You" (Shirelles then Beatles then Smith), "She's Not There" (Turtles then Santana), "Runaway" (Del Shannon then Bonnie Raitt), "Louie, Louie" (Richard Berry then Kingsman then The Last), "Hey, Jude" (Beatles then Wilson Pickett). Lots of other examples where there are really excellent covers that reveal how Rock and recording technology evolved through years

Goldy McJohn on the Hammond B-3 organ!

For sure...That great medley from the album Monster should be the next Steppenwolf must hear...

That's a must. Great, nother side of the howling wolf.

Great song totally underrated.

Great prose. I wish I could come up with lines like this.

Been there done that. Some survived, some didn’t.

If Six was Nine is a masterpiece

@@Prone2Thrill Fact.

Peter Fonda stashing the Bills into the gas line/tank in Easy Rider was a perfect backdrop.

"Monster" is a fantastic song especially considering how relevant it still is.

Yes , but if you do react to Monster make sure that it's from the Monster album not from the Live double album .

Steppenwolf kicks ass surprised more people don’t know. They were born to be wild

Me too.

Ditto Steve.

Just as Hoyt and Steppenwolf intended. Awesome story

Me too

When this came out, I didn't even know what a "pusher" was. Innocent me. When I found out, I liked this even more...

That was a classic!!

"..With big bellies.."

I too remember!

Couple of numbnuts!

Yeah, he seems to have changed his tune.

You betcha! He was an amazing songwriter. He even wrote Joy To The World by Three Dog Night.

And "Mama Told Me Not to Come"

@@SpuzzyLargo I think that Randy Newman wrote that one. Still yet, I laugh my butt off to that song. Lol! 😄

“Mama told me…” was Randy Newman but Never Been to Spain was Hoyt Axton.

@@robertlane8142 Oh yeah 👍

My friends and I were sometimes called the "Doobie" Brothers 😎

What else is there? Really? I love the fact that Alex, as a musician, can try to be objective in rating a song and not rate it based solely on his personal enjoyment. He used to rate that way (Black Betty, S-tier LOL) but now I think he tries to be objective. As he said, he’d listen more to this than he would many ones he’s rated A+ so….as an example….you could rate Yes’ Close to the Edge S-tier for all its accomplishments, but not want to hear it all that often. I think it’s cool that hw tries to do that.

Yup. I was in college then. Great music.

Donovan Season of the Witch is so fantastic

No, "Easy Rider".

One of the greatest soundtracks ever, I wore out the cassette!

I guess they didn’t remember it from the movie review.

Have they seen the movie?

Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf was also in Easy Rider, as was The Weight by The Band.

Hippo Stomp and The Ostrich are my two favorite S'wolf songs -- but there are so many that A&A would dig! Ride With Me, Foggy Mental Breakdown, Sooke Sookie, Don't Step On the Grass, Sam.... Great stuff.

They need to hear it as a deep cut in the early 70's. It's not possible to feel it in 2023 as it felt back then.

Sister Morphine by The Stones

Hand of Doom by Black Sabbath

Skynryd's "That Smell" is great also.

Also Neil Young's "No More"

I'll throw Skynyrd's "Needle And The Spoon" into the hat.

You’re 100% accurate my friend, I remember those days quite well.

I agree it is the best cover of a Beatles song but for this human "Third Uncle" is the bass banger par excellence.

@@stevious7278 Can't disagree-- Third Uncle is even more bass-intensive! Frankly, I think they'd love the whole album, but TNK might be a better gateway drug to get them there!

@@scottmarleneking6298 True! ✌

Remember hearing this in a head shop getting some zig zag papers.

As a former Seattleite, it pains me so much to see what has happened to my beloved former home.