Mitchell on Music

Have drugs influenced music the way they’ve influenced baseball?

Former Sen. George Mitchell, whose report earlier this month showed the pervasive influence of drugs on Major League Baseball, has now been hired by officials from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame to look into the influence of drugs on music.

“Sen. Mitchell’s report demonstrated that in baseball, some of the records are tainted and some of the players in the [Baseball] Hall of Fame are there due to drug use,” says Todd Mesek, spokesman for the joint project of the two music halls of fame. “We’ve asked him to also take a hard look at whether the records of some musicians may be due to performance-enhancing drugs.”

Staff members in Mitchell’s office are already hard at work analyzing music for signs of the influence of drugs.

“Just today we were talking about when Tom Petty sings, ‘Let’s get to the point, Let’s roll another joint’—is that a drug reference, or could he be talking about pulling a toilet paper prank on a roadside bar?” says a Mitchell staffer. “It’s hard to really know for sure.”

Given that the completion of the Mitchell Committee Report on Drugs and Music is probably at least a year away, it’s difficult to guess what the fallout could be. If it’s demonstrated that, say, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash may have written or performed under the influence of drugs or alcohol, will there be a movement to remove them from the Country Music Hall of Fame?

“I just don’t see that,” says a spokesman for the Country Hall. “Who cares if they were drinking? ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart’ and ‘I Walk the Line’ stand on their own, even if sometimes their singers couldn’t.”

But others take a harder line.

“We shouldn’t tolerate drug use in any of our entertainment, whether it’s sports or music,” says a Mitchell staffer, who adds, “There’s so much to investigate, I may get a couple of cups of Starbucks coffee and stay up all night working on this. I’m having a tough time figuring out what Jefferson Airplane were talking about in ‘White Rabbit.’ ”