300 Songs

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I think this song is pretty self-explanatory so this won’t really be a long blog. tl/dr: You do crazy things as a teenage boy. Then you grow up have your own teenage boys of your own and you hope that they don’t do the same shit that you did.

I was a good kid
Tried not to lie much
But there are some things
You don’t tell mom and dad

I was a good kid, or at least I tried to be. Growing up, I did my best to stay out of trouble and avoid lying to my parents. But as any teenager knows, there are some things you just don’t tell mom and dad. These inevitably involve drugs and alcohol. Sometimes driving cars or motorcycles while inebriated.

Like the bottle in the brown bag
And the Ziploc baggy
I got from the bikers
I worked with downtown
They thought I was older
Cause I worked the night shift
Emptying jukeboxes for Mongols MC

I’ve had jobs since I was 12 years old. Started as a paperboy delivering the morning paper and then shifted to the afternoon paper when I was 14 so I could stay up later at night. As soon as I had my license I bought a motorcycle and shifted to doing a motor route for the Redlands Daily Facts. Eventually I started working at the pressing plant, first assisting the Circulation Manager and then later working in the press room. For whatever reason there were a couple of (honest to goodness) bikers that worked at the plant. I later discovered that this was a trade that was significantly populated by members of outlaw motorcycle clubs and so this was not unusual. One of my many jobs at the paper was to empty the coins out of the vending racks that were the staple of the newspaper trade in those days. There were no real safeguards or controls to prevent someone emptying the machines from skimming money. And someone less honest would have probably done that but I didn’t. After I took over the fact that the machines were producing more revenue than they’d been previously was noted and this led one of the bikers to recommending me to a guy (clearly another biker) that controlled jukeboxes in a number of bars in the Inland Empire. I guess because they judged me an honest non-skimming kid, I was a good candidate for the job of emptying the machines.
In retrospect the whole thing was pretty shady because the guy worked from an office at the back of the local Muzak franchise. It was never clear if he worked for Muzak or not. See both businesses are essentially ways to legally publicly perform music in your establishment without needing a license directly from the songwriter organizations BMI, Ascap and Sesac. I can’t quite work it out but there was definitely something not kosher about this arrangement as public performance of music is regulated by The Department of Justice Antitrust Division and I’m sure this arrangement would raise eyebrows there. The arrangement felt like it was part of a racket.

Through these connections I met what would seem to be other members of outlaw motorcycle clubs. The bikers were a rough crowd, but they treated me well enough. They saw me as one of their own, despite my age. This was handy as I was a teenager, and I was interested in things like weed and mushrooms. As was standard practice, the bikers didn’t actually sell this stuff, but they would point you to someone they knew. And likely were paid some sort of tribute from these low level dealers. BTW the way I refer to this motorcycle club as The Mongols. They were not Mongols. Anyone familiar with this subculture will understand why I don’t use the real clubs name.

And that’s basically how I end up with the mushrooms that me and my friend Dale take on an all night Disneyland event they had in those days for graduating high school students. And there really is a Disneyland Jail. It’s a holding area below or behind the buildings on “Main Street.”

Never ride dirt bikes
Tripping on mushrooms
Through the Dangermond’s orchards
In the middle of the night
Never climb the water tower
Drunk as shit on vodka
You just might end up in the county morgue

We ate all the mushrooms
In the Disneyland parking lot
Dale had a puffy down jacket
Put the vodka up one sleeve
He looked like a body builder
But only on one side
So we rolled up a t-shirt
Put it up the other sleeve

Never take mushrooms
And ride on Space Mountain
You just might end up in Disneyland jail
Never drink vodka
Pass out on the monorail
You just might end up in Disneyland jail

Then you get older
Have some teenagers
You say “Oh my God please don’t do the shit that I did”
Stay in the chess club
Run for student council
Keep playing clarinet in the marching band

Never take mushrooms
And ride on Space Mountain
You just might end up in Disneyland jail
Never drink vodka
And pass out on the monorail
You just might end up in Disneyland
++++++++++++++++++++++
David Lowery: vocals and guitars

This entry was posted on June 1, 2025 at 10:18 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.