Top Ten Stoner Anthems for Celebrating 4/20 This Week

Though the origins behind why 4/20 has become synonymous with marijuana are as hazy as the inside of a bong, the pothead community has embraced the date as theirs. In observance of the year's most blazin' countercultural holiday, we've compiled a list of the ten greatest stoner anthems of all time. Celebrate responsibly, friends!

10. Peter, Paul & Mary, "Puff the Magic Dragon"
Is this a simple nursery song or a subversive melody meant to indoctrinate the young ones early? We might never know the truth, but that's part of the fun of this 1963 folkie.    

9. Sublime, "Smoke Two Joints"
Originally a reggae song released in 1983 by the Toyes, '90s punkers Sublime recorded the sped-up version you most likely know and love. 

8. Afroman, "Because I Got High"
Relistening to this 2000 soulful hip-hop ballad, you realize it could be an antidrug cautionary tale more effective than anything Nancy Reagan ever cooked up, but its playful tone makes it also a celebration of the power of weed to make you say "fuck it" to any occasion. 

7.  The Steve Miller Band, "The Joker"
"I'm a joker/I'm a smoker/I'm a midnight toker." Those three lines in the chorus help the rest of this 1973 classic-rock song with all its talk of space cowboys make a little more sense.

6.  The Beatles, "With a Little Help From My Friends"
It's hard to pick just one song by the Fab Four that celebrates weed. Once they got high, just about every song from Rubber Soul on had a drug reference. But Ringo Starr bragging that he gets high with a little help from his friends is the most overt. 

5. Cypress Hill, "I Wanna Get High"
The Southern California rappers could have a greatest-hits record just from their songs about weed, from "Hits From the Bong" to "Dr. Greenthumb" to "I Love You Mary Jane" to "Stoned Is the Way of the Walk," but this 1993 track from their second album, Black Sunday, using samples from Junior Parker's "Taxman," is the sweetest love song to herb ever lit up.

4. "La Cucaracha"
Though you won't often hear the mariachis sing this version at your neighborhood Mexican restaurant, there is a verse that goes back to 1910 that says, "La cucaracha, la cucaracha, ya no puede caminar porque no tiene, porque le falta marihuana que fumar." Which is translated as "the cockroach can't walk anymore because it doesn't have marijuana to smoke." 

3. Bob Dylan, "Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35"
Otherwise known as the "Everybody Must Get Stoned" song. Robert Zimmerman is known to give his songs deeper meanings than what at first seems obvious, but he was only 25 when this song was released in 1966, young enough to have a little fun with composing a song about wanting everyone to get stoned. And if it's not about drugs, pull out your calculator and multiply 12 with 35 and tell me it's just a coincidence that the number you get is 420.

2. Rick James, "Mary Jane"
The fallen master of funk might be more famous for saying "Cocaine is a hell of a drug," but this ode to marijuana from 1978 stands the test of time..

1. Peter Tosh, "Legalize It"
What would reggae legend Peter Tosh say if he were still alive and knew in the year 2016 that two states in the United States made marijuana completely legal and major presidential candidates wanted to decriminalize bud nationwide? Probably something along the lines of "Doctors smoke it, nurses smoke it, judges smoke it, even lawyer too/So you've got to legalize it, don't criticize it."