What do dreams, recollections of improv scenes, and stories of drug trips all have in common? Everyone loves hearing them described in great detail! You already came to this baby shower microdosing on magic mushrooms that your friend Zeke brought back from Oregon, and everyone here is sure going to know about it! (Was that really a “microdose” though? You were never great with eyeballing.) That’s right, time to bust out the best stories of your craziest trips. You’re a walking raconteur, a regular goddamn druggy Raymond Carver, dealing out mind-bending stories to anyone within earshot. But whatever you do, do not keep these stories succinct. People need to understand your magical journey! Here are 20 War On Drugs songs to provide the perfect soundtrack. (Listen to the playlist)
“Red Eyes”
Use this song from the 2014 album “Lost in the Dream” as a starting off point, since your eyes are actually bright red from resin-infused pre-rolls, plus irritation from a strange fungus on your couch. Sure, you’ve been smoking spliffs in the driveway and taking gummies since 6 a.m., but you are ready to make this baby shower become electric with tales of staring at wild patterns on pillows or getting lost in laundromats. Then, maybe look into that fungus.
“Living Proof”
In the kitchen line for mimosas, you begin talking to a cousin and the conversation somehow veers to shrooms. You talk about how you’re “living proof” that magic mushrooms make you a more considerate, conscious, open person. You demonstrate the cross-pollination of cranial hemispheres and fusing of sensory streams within your own brain. You explain what a good listener you are with a rambling twenty-minute story, weaving in War on Drugs lyrics, before this cousin fakes a phone call to get away from you.
“Pushing Corn”
When food is served, you get stuck at a glass tray filled with corn casserole. You begin swirling the casserole into mandala formations, complex symbols laced into the crust. Ancient symbols that speak to you. An impatient line forms behind you. Be sure to apologize and tell the quick story of a beach shroom trip six years back when you threw messages in a bottle from a pier, only to receive a littering ticket from a police officer that you could’ve sworn was actually Aaliyah dressed as Inspector Gadget.
“Lost in the Dream”
Oh man, we’ve all been there. There was that one time you took too many caps and wound up in city hall, crying at the mayor’s door, escorted out by hands that felt like tentacles around your lithe, twisted body. You try telling this story to some of the next door neighbors, whispering in short bursts, but they look away, hoping for any reason to stop talking with you. That’s alright, hum this song aloud to yourself while you open the fridge looking for orange juice.
“A Needle In Your Eye #16”
You find the expecting couple and discuss all of the sedatives to come, how you avoid any injections, opting for “au natural.” Parents-to-be love uninvited advice! Use this song from the debut 2008 War on Drugs album “Wagonwheel Blues” to illustrate your point. When you suggest a baggy of shrooms as an alternative, the expectant mother balks at the suggestion, as does the father (while later discreetly asking for a hookup in the hallway). Make a note to bring a clandestine strong tea brew next time you see him – this will certainly make the quiet, very easy process of bringing home a newborn much more fascinating.
“Holding On”
The mellow buzz of the microdose should be setting in. You grab the armrests of your seat. Isn’t that a pleasant texture? What is this fine sensation? There is a conversation with family members going on around you, discussion of local schools, before you loudly interject with “I like to take it with peanut butter. This one time in Yosemite we tried shrooms with Slim Jims cuz that’s all Mikey had and that was disgusting. Ugh!” Everyone nods, and you laugh, feeling your sense of self expanding and reverberating into the chair.
“Burning”
Shrooms always make you want a cigarette, so you go to the side of the house where some teenagers are quietly vaping. They suspiciously eye you and you try to get on their level: “You kids wanna hear a delulu story? This one time, I was on shrooms in Walgreens, and I got kicked out for vaping in the pharmacy. That place has no rizz! But point is, I thought I saw Adam Granduciel, from War on Drugs, inside the store. Turns out it was just another pharmacist so my bad, I guess. Pretty cool story, huh? Right?” Laugh to yourself and admire the shrubbery lining the fence as the teens slowly back away.
“Buenos Aires Beach”
As work friends of the host discuss vacation plans, use this as a reason to discuss your profound trip experience on a Mendocino beach. “The sand, it was talking to me. I call this day ‘My Personal Awakening.’ I realize that we are all one, all just repeating this cycle of human cruelty, when all we should do is love openly and cherish each other’s company.” Look deeply into the avoidant eyes of everyone around you, your eyes welling with tears, just happy to be in their presence.
“Pain”
Find someone else at the baby shower, another inward-seeking soul, and tell them about your scariest shroom trips. There was that you accidentally got locked in a friend’s room. Hours alone in the dark, everyone outside in the hall laughing. Faces stirring in the shadows, a crumpled sweatshirt on a chair frowning at you, fabric housing a thousand demons and secrets between the weaves. Breathing felt like daggers inside your chest. As the stranger comforts you, put some of the cheese from the charcuterie board in your pocket. No one’s eating that brie, so it’s technically fair game. Brie travels well in pockets, right?
“Under the Pressure”
Go outside for some breathing room, maybe into the front yard where you can interact with strangers. Leave the house, walk down the street, pull your necktie away from your neck – the international symbol for “I sure am under pressure!” Aren’t we all, though? Everyone with their private lives, difficult stories and personal battles. “It’s such a rich wonderful world,” you think to yourself. If anyone walks by, tell them stories about more fun tripping stories from Coachella, or about that time you rewatched all of “The Good Wife” three times over a period of months, or how you spent hours laughing at daisies just this past weekend. Riveting anecdotes.
“Baby Missiles”
You are fully in a different part of the neighborhood. A sudden flash in your periphery scares you before you realize it’s just a crow. You see a city worker fixing a stoplight, launching into a long story about seeing things that aren’t there. “The material moves,” you explain. “Like a world beneath this world, invisible beings, echos of phantoms, all from bad trips, man. That batch a few months back was poison, no good,” you explain, offering caps of brown gnarled shrooms to the man in a high-visibility vest and hardhat. He explains he’s on the job, but takes your number just in case.
“Change”
You walk downtown listening to their 2021 album “A Deeper Understanding” on headphones, now shedding your jacket (“hot, so hot, too hot” you mutter to yourself). Suddenly, you realize there is a giant CVS full of people ready to hear your fantastic stories. The automatic doors open and you smile at the security guard, asking him if he has had any “fun trips lately.” He begins to talk about a recent vacation to Barbados, clearly misunderstanding you. Either way, you have a vivid kaleidoscopic conversation with this man that you will never forget. Or at least until you come down.
“The History of Plastic”
As you walk down the soap product aisle listening to this song from the sophomore War on Drugs album, 2011’s “Slave Ambient,” you reflect on how much plastic is thrown out on any given day. You consider all of the microplastics inside of us. You see an elderly couple and say too loudly, “Ah, far less microplastics in you two. It’s lead and asbestos you gotta worry about, right?” They look on confusingly as you discuss the merits of glass jars versus plastic bags for storing shrooms. Once again you are misunderstood, as discussion of shitake versus portobello is prompted from the old man.
“Disappearing”
Hide in the aisles and whisper your most fun shroom trip experiences to anyone walking by. Mothers love when you prompt a discussion on drugs with their children, especially when every sentence is punctuated with, “It’s a real groovy time, man.” Hell, why not open up some of the probiotics capsules and hand those out to people in the store? As you are escorted out, explain the importance of the gut-brain connection.
“Wasted”
This place has changed, man. Once the CVS was a welcome center of people ready for conversation. Now you see a cavernous, monstrous, unwelcoming death factory. You stare at the shaking, quaking building, laughing at a hilarious family of shopping carts in front of you. Suddenly it all seems so sad and you have the most amazing cry of your life while sitting on a public fountain.
“Clean Living”
No more shrooms. That’s it. You decide right there, this is the last trip. For this month, at least. You go into a Jamba Juice (that’s right, you still call it by the original name, fuck the corporate Jamba lingo) and begin explaining how much better your shrooms trips are now that you’ve been going out to the desert. “No one knows your pain in nature, no one can hear the torture in your soul,” you explain to a high-schooler behind the counter just trying to get through a shift.
“Eyes to the Wind”
Remembering that since you actually caught a ride to the baby shower, you need to head back to the house, now with a better understanding of not only this suburban section of town, but the inexhaustible wonders of life itself. You reflect on the memories made. You’re a different man as you enter the baby shower, now being cleaned up by family members. The party is over, you’ve somehow been gone for five hours.
“Up All Night”
The kind hosting couple waits with you as an Uber arrives. You quietly play this song from the fourth War on Drugs album, 2017’s “A Deeper Understanding,” from your phone. Use this as a chance to tell yet another wild shroom trip story, this time about breaking into a museum and possible involvement in an arson case at a rugby stadium while living abroad. You ask if there are any leftovers to take home before being distracted by a pleasant design on the napkins.
“I Don’t Live Here Anymore (feat. Lucia)”
And suddenly you’re a stranger, riding through the city at night, talking at length to an exhausted Uber driver that clearly wants to listen to Christian radio and be left alone. Instead, you tell him enthralling stories about how much your hand changes while on shrooms. “It’s like my fingers are having a civil war, like my thumb is waking up from a nightmare,” you explain to the driver, driving extra fast to end this ride.
“Strangest Thing”
And suddenly, you’re back home again. Whoa. How does this even work? What is this rat race we call life? How does anyone go anywhere and come back as the same person? You look at your cat and ponder the meaning of existence while throwing on a War on Drugs vinyl. Time to take a few more caps and just relax into the night. Tomorrow holds a new world of strangers, waiting to hear your shroom stories!
Listen to the playlist:
Photo by Sputniktilt