Ever wondered why music sounds better stoned?

Music on Drugs


“It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics… dope and all that crap. It’s a thousand times better than whiskey – its an assistant – a friend.”
-Louis Armstrong​

Marijuana is a drug that has been studied (if perhaps with varying degrees of scientific objectivity) for decades if not centuries. It has a history that reaches deep into our past and is a plant that grows naturally (like the weed it is) in all the corners of the world. Despite its very apparent worldwide presence, the explanations behind the effects of marijuana on the human psyche continue to elude researchers and experienced users alike. The effects, meanwhile, have been readily observed, and studies such as Charles Taft’s “Psychological Study of the Effects of Marijuana Intoxication” indicate that of 150 subjects interviewed, “95% reported an enhanced auditory acuity very often or usually.” This paper will not address the validity of the studies focused on marijuana (that would require a much lengthier work than what is to follow), but it will provide possible explanations for this nearly unanimous reported effect marijuana has on the human perception of sound and, more particularly, music. The answers given, it is important to note, will not be the result of proper scientific research, and must be taken with a grain of salt. Whether or not the reader agrees with the conclusions drawn in this paper, however, is largely inconsequential, as this paper seeks simply to offer a rudimentary discourse on the subject. Nevertheless, the fact remains that, of every 100 people who use marijuana, almost 95 of them will report intense effects on their auditory senses. On this subject there are a number of possible explanations: that the drug enhances the brain’s perception/appreciation/enjoyment of music, that music enhances the drug experience, or simply that many musicians craft their songs under the influence of drugs, leading to a natural advantage for those listening in the same state.
Before we can understand why marijuana has the effects it does, we must understand what these reported effects are. In his book Man and Marijuana, Mark Merlin offers a detailed description of the effects of marijuana:​

This last perception of increased communicative abilities is important to note, as communication through music may follow similar parameters. Reported symptoms from inhaling burnt cannabis leaves reflect Merlin’s account, as “people report changes in taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing,” and “aspects of recognition memory may suffer during intoxication. These recognition memory problems suggest that marijuana may impair the ability to separate relevant and irrelevant stimuli,” (again, this final point will reappear later in this paper as a possible explanation for the vastly divergent musical experiences when sober and when drugged). Test subjects also reported “an improved ability to imagine pictures and objects” and the ability to “understand the words to songs better, detecting more subtle changes in sound, and perceiving greater separation between sources of sound.” Some subjects even reported ‘synaesthesia’ at high levels of intoxication, when “sound takes on visual, colorful qualities.” Although this is not as common as other reported effects, it is evidence that marijuana can play a role in blurring the boundaries between the visual and auditory domains. The fact that so many subjects report similar effects on their musical experience suggests that this is not a unique phenomenon but evidence of a radical altering of the effects of music on the mind.
The first potential explanation, and perhaps the easiest to accept, is that THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana,) radically alters brain function, especially in areas dealing with sensual perception. Many test subjects reported “enhanced visual acuity and depth perception, but laboratory studies suggest impairment in these same abilities.” It is quite possible that marijuana simply makes the user think that music is more enjoyable, rather than affecting any of the areas of the brain which deal with audio stimuli. Music is, after all, incredibly elusive to identify concretely at its most fundamental level. When asked to describe what makes a particular song better than others, many individuals will have difficulty explaining exactly what it is that appeals to them. We like a song for no other reason than because it appeals to us, a direct relation to how our brain perceives things. Marijuana obviously does not change music itself, but it does convince the brain that the notes sound better, the rhythm is more fluid, and the words have a deeper meaning. As music is something that is invariably experienced on an individual level, and can mean something different to everyone who hears it, this explanation would appear, if not universally valid, quite reasonable.
Another commonly reported effect of marijuana is its role as a stress reliever. Many users explain their drug experiences as a release from the difficulties of daily life. Marijuana, via the dopamine it releases in the brain, can certainly have this effect. Our modern society (and this is especially true in the United States) demands a fast paced and anxious lifestyle, causing people to live out their adult lives in a continual state of stress. Stress has been shown to have acute effects on the enjoyment or pleasure factors of life, diminishing the pleasure that can be obtained from day to day activities. Listening to music can easily be included in this category, and the effects of a stressful lifestyle on the enjoyment of music must be similar. If marijuana is an efficient stress reliever, those under its influence would experience less stress and would thus be able to enjoy music in all its glory. Since stress distracts us from the simple pleasures of life, its absence causes those simple pleasures (such as distinct notes or clearer rhythms) to be more readily appreciated.
Test subjects who reported seeing “auditory images” may be evidence of a different explanation altogether. In his work on the Scientific Study of Marijuana, Ernest Abel records some reactions to marijuana as they relate to auditory images:​

If this is true, marijuana may enable users to create a vivid mental image that represents the music as it is experienced. This would lead users to become much more involved with the music and, coupled with the increased creativity which many marijuana smokers report, could explain the heightened levels of their enjoyment of music.
Returning to the idea that marijuana may impair the ability to separate relevant and irrelevant stimuli, another explanation may logically arise. With or without the influence of drugs, the brain possesses a subconscious filter which determines which stimuli to report and which to ignore. Marijuana may have the ability to blur this distinction between relevancy and irrelevancy, or even remove this filter altogether. If this is true, then the brain, when under the influence of marijuana, would be unable to select what to report and what to ignore and, by default, would report every perceived nuance of stimuli. If the brain becomes suddenly able to detect changes in pitch which were not present while sober, even while the overall composition of the music remains unchanged, our appreciation of the piece in question will undoubtedly be heightened. Furthermore, if the absence of this filter results in the appearance of multiple minute changes in a piece of music, these differences could be compiled together to create an entirely different musical experience. It is possible that while a sober mind will determine some aspects of music to be irrelevant (due to this filter), the intoxicated mind will perceive more fully the different aspects of music and deem them to be exceptionally relevant to the task at hand, namely the enjoyment of music.
An alternative view on this subject is that music (and all of its mystical qualities) enhances the drug experience rather than the other way around. This alternative explanation seems to suggest that music is a mechanism that can heighten the drug experience, or “high,” and take it to a new level. Most marijuana users will report specific rituals they share when smoking marijuana. Could it be possible that these rituals, in contributing to a general state of contentedness or comfort, supplement the high? If so, music must certainly be considered among these rituals, and its presence (due to its connection with the act of getting high) would tell the brain to alter its functioning systems and enable a further level of intoxication (this assumes, of course, that music does in fact possess this mystical ability to reach deeper into our subconscious and communicate directly with the soul). It’s understandable, then, that in combining the drug (and its consciousness expanding effects) and music (and its deep communicative ability), our minds become able to process this information and subsequently report increased sensitivity to music.
A final explanation behind this mystery is perhaps the most simple: that musicians who use drugs and make music while under the influence produce music that drug users can enjoy and to which they can specifically relate. The earliest and possibly most descriptive example of this is to be found in the appearance of jazz music in the late 19th century. It was not uncommon for a jazz musician to use marijuana, and it was among this social group of musicians that marijuana first made inroads into mainstream popular culture. On a side note, it is also due to marijuana’s association with this largely African American musical movement that it was demonized so fiercely by politicians in the 1930s. As one newspaper editorial reported, “marijuana influences Negros to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows, and look at white women twice.” Returning to the subject at hand, as marijuana took hold among musicians in New Orleans or New York, new sounds began to appear in music. Harry Shapiro recants the first time jazz musician Mezz Mezzrow tried marijuana in his 1988 book, Waiting for the Man: The Story of Drugs and Popular Music:​

Many jazz musicians caught on to this new trend and began smoking as they composed their music, as it was widely felt among the jazz community that “marijuana helped the creation of jazz by removing inhibitions and providing stimulation and confidence.” However, marijuana still had yet to make the jump from musicians to their fans, so for further consideration of this argument more contemporary sources must be used.
During the sixties, marijuana had clearly made its jump into the mainstream population of the United States. Appearing on the scene in 1960 and steadily gaining popularity until their breakup in 1970, the Beatles (as the most obvious musical representation of this decade) will serve as an exquisite example. Although the group initially did not smoke marijuana, the Beatles met in 1964 with Bob Dylan, who misinterpreted one of their lyrics to be “I get high” (the real line was “I can’t hide”) and introduced them to marijuana. Following this “baptism” of sorts, the Beatles began producing music which had a considerably different sound than their previous work. Paul McCartney even admitted that the band had been stoned for most of the filming of Help! in 1965 and that a few of their songs were even written as “odes to pot.” The Beatles sound showed a distinct shift away from pop and towards more experimental musical compositions, as evidenced by the comparison of their later albums (such as Yellow Submarine, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Revolver) with their earliest productions (Meet the Beatles, Beatlemania, and Twist and Shout). This shift in their basic sound was accompanied, not surprisingly, by a shift in the composition of their fan base.
To make use of a more contemporary example, the popular indie group The Shins revealed that, while writing and recording their most recent album, Wincing the Night Away, the band had been “significantly stoned” on marijuana and LSD. The album itself is full of melodic rifts and smooth, fluid transitions that seem to appeal directly to listeners under the influence of marijuana. Because marijuana users share similarities in their patterns of perceptions, it is an understandable conclusion that the music produced in a particular state of mind communicates most directly with someone in a similar mental state.
Whether these explanations suffice to answer this quandary remains to be seen, and many arguments still remain unaddressed. The points represented above, however, all seem to provide logical and potentially accurate explanations for a phenomenon that modern science has been unable to explain. Some, if not all, of the explanations posited by this paper may be discounted by the reader as unscientific and therefore invalid, but the sheer consistency of reports claiming marijuana as an enhancer of the listening experience cannot be ignored.​