Pass the Dutchie

"Pass the Dutchie"
Song
B-side	"Give Love a Chance"

"Pass the Dutchie" was a song recorded by the British group Musical Youth from their 1982 album The Youth of Today. It was a major hit, holding the number one position on the UK singles charts for three weeks in September and October 1982.

Background

The song was a cover version of the song "Pass the Koutchie" by The Mighty Diamonds, which deals with the recreational use of cannabis, "koutchie" being slang for a cannabis pipe. For the cover version, the song's title was bowdlerized to "Pass the Dutchie", and all obvious drug references were removed from the lyrics; e. g., when the original croons "How does it feel when you got no herb?", the cover version refers to "food" instead. (The term "dutchie" has itself become a drug reference; it refers to a blunt rolled in a wrap from a Dutch Masters cigar.) "Dutchie" was slang at the time for "cooking pot" as in cookware. However, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out what they were trying to say.

The song was first championed by radio DJ Zach Diezel and became an instant hit when it was picked up by MCA Records in September 1982. It debuted at #26 on the chart and rose to #1 the following week. In February of the following year, it reached #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the USA. The song also scored a top 5 success in the Norwegian chart, eventually selling over 4 million copies worldwide. The video, shot partly on the banks of the River Thames in London, across from the Palace of Westminster, was one of the first by black artists to get airplay on MTV.

References in other songs

• "Pass the Dutchie" was covered by the ska band Buck-O-Nine.
• The song was sampled by rap group Public Enemy for the song "Revolutionary Generation" on their album Fear of a Black Planet.
• The song was sampled by the American rapper Cam'ron and it was named as the original.
• The three first sentences of the song have been sampled by the french house band 'Superfunk' in their song "The young MC" (on their album Hold up').
• The song is referenced lyrically on Beck's 1996 album Odelay in the song "Where It's At".
• The song is referenced lyrically on Ice Cube's 1994 single "Bop Gun (One Nation)" (featuring George Clinton) -- the fourth single from Ice Cube's fifth album, Lethal Injection.
• In 2005, the song was parodied by Dezil' in French-language under the title "Laisse tomber les filles (qui se maquillent)", and peaked at #13 in France and #47 in Switzerland.
• The song was sampled in The Black Eyed Peas song "Dum Diddly" from their album Monkey Business.
• In May 2009, Los Angeles based music duo LOONER released "Dutchie,” their laid back version of the song which lyrically references the main chorus of the original.
• UK-based electronic hip-hop artist Star Slinger remixed the song for his first volume of music. The remix is called "Dutchie Courage."

Chart positions

Chart (1982)	Peak position
Australia Singles Chart	1
Dutch Singles Chart	1
Swiss Singles Chart	1
UK Singles Chart	1
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	10

References in Pop Culture

• The Canadian hit teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation, which is known for naming each episode after an 80s hit song, named a Season 7 episode after this song, about the use of medicinal marijuana.
• In the 2000 satrical comedy film Scary Movie, during the rap scene involving Shory, his friends and the killer. Shorty's rap contains this line: "... always pass the Dutchie to the left 'cause the right way is wrong".
• The song was used in the soundtrack of the 1998 movie The Wedding Singer.
• In the Simpsons episode, Thirty Minutes over Tokyo, Homer makes a reference to the song in saying that he "wants to pass the Dutchie on the left hand side".
• The song was used in the film version of Scooby-Doo in the scene where Shaggy and Scooby are cooking in their van.
• The song was used on the New Zealand film Boy.