"Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)"

Psychedelic dreaming in music and film with Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, Jeff Bridges, and the Coen Brothers

Rock ’n’ Roll with Me is an email newsletter presenting one or more of my favorite danceable rock ’n’ roll songs, from the sixties onwards, along with some fun facts and memories.

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“Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” is a 1967 song by Mickey Newbury that was intended to warn kids off using LSD — by showing them the crazy hallucinations they would experience being on a mind-bending ‘acid trip.’

For more recent generations the song has a much different emotional sensibility, one more associated with humor, bemusement, and enjoyable confusion than fear of going off the deep end, as it has become closely associated with the perpetually high and eminently lovable Dude in the film The Big Lebowski (1998), played by the brilliant Jeff Bridges. After the Dude has his drink spiked by a porn kingpin (Ben Gazzara), he finds himself in a phantasmagorical and highly pleasurable dream involving bowling, a Viking queen (Julianne Moore), and…well, you really have to see it for yourself to ‘get’ it. The point being that the song “Just Dropped In” accompanies the Dude (and you, vicariously) as he navigates through this bizarre and surreal drug-induced dream world.

Note that the film was co-written and co-directed by the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, who have an incredible filmography as both filmmakers and screenwriters. Between them they’ve been nominated for 15 Academy Awards and won for Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Adapted Screenplay. In addition to The Big Lebowski, a number of their films are on my own personal list of favorites, including Raising Arizona, Fargo, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, and True Grit (which also stars Jeff Bridges).

Here’s the dream clip from the film. For the best psychedelic effect, pay attention to both the lyrics and the sound effects of the song. The song starts at 0:30 if you want to skip right to it, but I recommend seeing the outrageous intro to the dream, narrated by Sam Elliott.

You’ll find some fun facts about the film and the song below. But first let’s focus on the unusual and interesting background to the song in terms of the people who chose to put it out into the world. Not at all the people you would expect to do so.

First there’s songwriter Mickey Newbury, who appeared a contradiction in terms, being an Air Force veteran who became a ‘hippie cowboy,’ joined the music industry, and penned this classic of psychedelic rock that, against all conventions, was meant to discourage rather than promote the enjoyment of psychedelic drugs. He would then go on to be a significant influence on the outlaw country movement that developed in the 70s, with its disdain for the music industry, its hard-drinkin’, hell-raisin’ ways, and the more progressive and introspective themes of its songs, and yet would reject participating in that movement himself as “playing cowboys” and acting “like a kid.”

Also ironic is the fact that many of those he influenced, such as Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, made it big as country singers, but Mickey himself never did. His influence as a songwriter was profound, however, with in excess of 1,500 versions of his songs recorded by an impressive array of artists in a wide range of genres. Elvis Presley made Mickey’s “An American Trilogy” one of his concert staples, and Kris Kristofferson claimed that he “learned more about songwriting from him than any other writer... He was my hero and still is.”

No surprise hearing Kris say that, considering the fact that at the same time “Just Dropped In” was a big hit for the First Edition in 1968, reaching number five on the Pop/Rock chart, Mickey had number one hits as a songwriter on three other charts at the same time — Eddy Arnold’s “Here Comes the Rain Baby” on the Country chart, Solomon Burke’s “Time is a Thief” on the R&B chart, and Andy Williams’ “Sweet Memories” on the Easy Listening chart — a feat that has never been repeated. Mickey was also the youngest ever (at the time) to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, in 1980 (around age 40).

As I said, Mickey Newbury is not the guy I would have expected to be the author of this classic psychedelic rock song. But the song has quite a good pedigree, wouldn’t you say?

It’s a further irony that Kenny Rogers, both with the First Edition and during his career before and after, was not known for psychedelic rock either. Like Mickey, he was a musical chameleon who was perhaps best known for country (he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013) and pop, but also sang soft rock, folk, and jazz. Imagine my surprise when I realized that it was Kenny Rogers heading the First Edition and that they were playing a song (“Just Dropped In”) that veered towards hard rock. It was the new group’s first top ten hit and also the first of the more than 120 in Kenny’s career. (The guy is one of the most popular and best-selling musical performers of all time.)

It’s probably worth mentioning that the members of the First Edition were not newbies to the music business. Most of them had been with the folk music group New Christy Minstrels and left in 1967 to form their own group out of frustration with Minstrels’ management. Drummer Terry Williams alone came with a different background, having backed Bob Dylan on tour. “Just Dropped In” would be their first big hit, the following year, and they would rack up four more Top 20 hits, including country song “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” (1969).

In listening to the fantastic version of “Just Dropped In” below, from a live TV performance at that time, I have to express chagrin that Kenny and the First Edition didn’t decide to become a hard rock band as many bands were deciding to do at the time. (But then think of the gazillions of disappointed country and pop fans!) As you listen to this, I’m wondering what you think.

The First Edition broke up in 1976 in the wake of declining popularity and finances. My own view, looking back, is that the band never figured out exactly who they were or what kind of band they wanted to be. Rock, pop, country — all over the map. It’s clear that they were all really talented, and they appeared to love playing together, so I feel sorry that it didn’t work out. That said, drummer Mickey Jones went on to become a character actor, guitarist Terry Williams worked with Kenny in his recording studio, and Mary Arnold married singer Roger Miller and toured and recorded with him, as well as performing with other artists. So I can’t feel too sorry, the world having benefitted from their talents in other, and arguably equally important, ways.

Some fun facts

• Jeff Bridges got himself in a bit of trouble on the set of The Big Lebowski when they were filming part of the dream sequence, as he related to Conan O’Brien on his late night talk show Conan. Jeff had decided to invite his wife and daughters to the set because he thought they were going to do the Busby Berkeley-style dance scenes. Instead, they were filming the shots where he is going through the women’s legs like a bowling ball and looking up their skirts. Uh-oh. Even worse, unbeknownst to him the women had decided to pull a prank and got the props department to outfit them with masses of fake pubic hair sticking out of their costumes. It turned out that his wife and daughters and the rest of the crew were in on the prank. You can watch Jeff share the story with Conan in this clip from the show.

• Besides being used in The Big Lebowski, the First Edition of the song “Just Dropped In” has also appeared in the film Faster and the TV series True Detective, Goliath, Young Sheldon, Chuck, Difficult People, and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, as well as in some video games and a comic book.

• You can watch a rather amusing version of the First Edition performing the song on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967 here. This was the group’s first appearance on national television. Tommy Smothers does a funny intro, and Kenny is almost a Jeff Bridges look-alike here. See if you agree.

• Although not a member of the group, Glen Campbell plays the reverse guitar solo at the beginning (as a session musician). See my post on Glen and his hit “Wichita Lineman” here.

• The song was also recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, and many other groups and singers representing a range of countries and genres.

• Some fun trivia: When Thelma Camacho left the group after the release of the song (you can see her in the Smothers Brothers video above), Karen Carpenter auditioned to be her replacement, but the role went to Thelma’s roommate, Mary Arnold.

• There’s a quite enjoyable one-hour on-the-road documentary called The First Edition: Tell It All with bus, rehearsal, and backstage footage, filmed in 1971 for PBS, which you can watch here.

Questions for discussion in the comments

1. Should the First Edition have become a hard rock band?

2. Have you ever dreamed about a Viking queen?

3. What’s your favorite Coen Brothers film?

4. What’s your favorite Jeff Bridges film?

5. Has someone spiked your drink and sent you on an acid trip? Was your dream the same as the Dude’s?