Great Music to Listen to While High: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9

It always seems a little funny to me to be suggesting great music to listen to while high because I think if it’s great music, it’s going to be great music while you’re stoned as well. I haven’t yet found the artist who, when sober, I feel is crap but somehow becomes transcendental when I have a little cannabis in my blood. Also, as expected, music that I enjoy stoned doesn’t somehow become dogshit to my ears when sober. Basically I’m saying that Kelly Clarkson sucks no matter what you’ve smoked.

The subject of this installment of great stoner music is viewed by some as the greatest piece of music ever written. While that claim is exceptionally subjective, it is without a doubt one of the most well known and respected works ever put to paper: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

I don’t know if cannabis was really around or even well known enough in Ludwig’s day for him to have any contact with it, but it is known that he loved his wine. Beethoven, in his time, was like Freddy Mercury. A true rock star adored by the masses.

The entire symphony is over an hour long. The famous “Ode to Joy” section comes in the final movement of Symphony no. 9. In the film Immortal Beloved, it is suggested that Ode to Joy was inspired by events of Beethoven’s youth. By many accounts, Beethoven had a very strict and joyless childhood rampant with beatings and ridicule from his own family. The legend goes that a young Beethoven would sneak from his room on warm nights and go swimming in a nearby lake. The weightless peace and benevolent solitude he found floating on his back, looking up at a boundless starscape is supposedly the moment that “Ode to Joy” is capturing.

I don’t know how historically accurate that story is as I am sure there is at least a slight amount of Hollywood romanticism tossed in there, too, but it always stuck with me. The deep solace that settles into my heart when the magnificence of the natural world blots out the petty machinations of human drama has been my own “Ode to Joy” on many occasions; the inspiration for this article was on one.

I was having a rough day. The perfect tonic for a shitty day turned out to be a nice fat bong hit and a long walk through the trees with Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 blaring in my headphones. It truly is hard to feel bad when those familiar notes resonate in your bones.

Some things are super popular regardless of quality or reason (see Kelly Clarkson, Twilight “novels”), others are wildly popular because they are just so damned good: Shakespeare, Zeppelin, Beethoven, you get the idea. Don’t reject giving Beethoven’s No 9. a whirl just because it’s uber popular and almost 200 years old. This is one gem that has lasted through time because it deserves to and is still a benchmark by which other artistic masterpieces will be judged.

Here is “Ode to Joy,” from Beethoven’s Symphony no.9, final movement:

Check out other posts from Weedist’s Great Music While High series!