Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; (I’m quoting Ishmael from Moby-Dick here) whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself pausing involuntarily before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to listen to some Dope Lemon as soon as I can.
Because Dope Lemon (aka Angus Stone) has done the whole wide world a favor by inventing a whole new genre of music I call stoner yacht rock, and verily it is as efficacious a remedy for the hypos as ever devised by the hand of mortal man. From the moment I first heard “Miami Baby” from Dope Lemon’s 2023 LP Kimosabè, damp, drizzly November vacated my soul, and from there I went on to listen to his other four albums, and I haven’t methodically knocked off a hat since. Haven’t paused before any coffin warehouses either. I’ve been too mellow,
I simply haven’t heard music this chill in eons. Listening to Dope Lemon is like sailing a sea of blissful narcotics in a pleasure craft made out of honey and gold—I’m talking about some classic laid-back yacht rock with the occasional psychedelic overlay, and the guy’s lyrics are smart and he’s funny to boot. And if you take his lyrics at face value—and I don’t see why you shouldn’t—he sure does love his drugs.
Take the opening lines from the great “John Belushi” from 2025’s Golden Wolf, his latest: “I’m doped out, self-medicated at all times.” Which he follows shortly thereafter with “Chain me up to the fridge and sell tickets/I’m a freakshow and I want more.” You wanna see the yacht Dope Lemon’s on you’re going to have to look up, way up just left of the crescent moon, because that boy is sailing.
Stone’s an Australian and began his career in a duo with his sister Julia, with whom he recorded four albums before releasing a solo album under the moniker Lady of the Sunshine and a second under his real name. After that he became Dope Lemon, and Dope Lemon is the Numero Uno Chillest Dude on the Planet, even when he ups the tempos and freaks the fuck out. And the best part is you never know what’s gonna come out of his mouth—he’s one weird dude, and a wise dude, and when he isn’t singing about drugs or how you can’t afford his gasoline, he’s singing about butter, gold, honey, and (romantic) love. He’s always singing about butter, gold, honey, and (romantic) love.
Have I mentioned that I adore this guy? That I’ve been going through some really hard times of late, and Dope Lemon may indeed be responsible for saving my life? Dope Lemon can save your life!
So “cowboy the fuck up, let’s get moving” (to quote “John Belushi” again) and get down to Kimosabè, which is a great title seeing as how Stone is one of those people you would love to hang out with, that is unless he’s an insufferable ass cuz you never know. Kimosabè has it all; one minute the guy’s going all Boz Scaggs easy-listening on you and the next he’s laying some love wisdom on you or going Timothy Leary on your ass with a droning lysergic dirge to Peggy Lee and lemon trees.
The title track features a funky, bass-heavy, laid-back groove as well as some cool samples from Will Ferrell from Stepbrothers—like so much of the album it’s trance-like, and over this cool guitar figure Dope Lemon keeps singing, “Oh, no way, Kimosabè/You’re gon’ fuck with my high” while Ferrell comes in with lines like “This is my house now” and (my personal favorite) “You’re a big, fat, curly-headed fuck.” And like on so many of his songs, the subject turns to heroism, love, and honey, with DL singing, “I’m a conquistador, I’m an ordinary man/But my heart still melts like honey/When you try to hold my hand.”
“Derby Raceway” has get up and go and has Dope Lemon waxing autobiographical surreal from the start:
“I was born as a hick down the derby at the racecar track
I was born as a TV dinner, the lazy man’s crack
I was born in the 40s, when they moon-suited up a man
To float around in space and be happy he never had to land.”
Then he tosses in some John Wayne (“I was born in the desert, when John Wayne was killed/Oh, man, the next gunslinger up, he had some big old boots to fill”) before turning the subject to whisky and romance, and his lover’s words which are really affecting:
“We were drinking whiskey on a Sunday afternoon
Rosied up your cheeks, then you took me to your room
Told me all the things that I outta know that you’d been through
Told me if you had the chance, if you found a heart like mine
It’s mine you’d choose.”
The boy sure can work a whole lot into a song, even if his history is suspect (forties, man in space?) and he does even better on the epic banjo, bass, and clavinet-driven “Golden God,” on which he delivers a wonderful monologue full of the wisdom of the ages:
“You’re a spectacular golden god
And we all live and die by the principle that the big bad wolf of the world one day will lose all sense of time
It’s gold, son
And it doesn’t mean a thing.”
Says he’s going to die in an old shack by the sea, says (and he’s always saying it) “You can’t afford my gasoline, son,” then (as he also always does) he offers some sage advice to the lovers of the world:
“If she wants to go get lost in someone else’s eyes
Just let it be, son
Just let it be.”
And of course he goes off on weird tangents, saying things like “Man, Teddy Roosevelt gave an entire speech with a bullet lodged in his chest” which makes him one crazy plate-spinning motherfucker of a wordsmith, and you get the idea he’s just making this shit up as he goes along, which you probably shouldn’t try because as he says right out loud, “You ain’t got the sand for it, son.” I love this guy.
“Miami Baby” gets my vote for best song of 2023, cuz it’s the most bodaciously laid-back slice of chillaxation ever likely to crawl in through your earholes and turn your brain to sweet butter and honey. I’m talking yacht rock of legendary proportions, smooth sailing from sea to shining sea, and you’ve got a spliff in one hand and a glass of something golden that goes down easily in the other.
It’s real funky, natch, and Dope Lemon sounds really, really stoned and chill. His girl “has got them honeybones” and he’s in Miami “on the beach with a cool carton of cold ones/And we’re rollin’ with our friend Mary Jane” and the palm trees are waving back and forth and the female backing singers are going “They only believe me when I’m tellin’ lies/When I’m tellin’ lies.” And then this killer guitar solo comes in like straight from an old Cracker song and all you can say is what Dope Lemon keeps saying: “Yeah, Miami, baby.”
“Just You and Me” is a slick romantic number about a love long past, no flights of verbal fancy just a lovely melody and chiming guitars and Dope Lemon playing it wistful and straight, singing about “Sitting in your old car by the old drugstore” like he’s Bob Seger and how it all “Seems so far away now, so far away now.” This is the universal shit Stone is singing about, getting out of the old town which is cool but there ain’t a place in this whole damned world you can leave without leaving something priceless behind. That’s just the way it is.
“Blue Moon Fox” is pure rad psychedelic Motown, with that Detroit drumbeat and a lazy but soulful melody. Dope Lemon sings about “Violet flowers and charlatan gin,” and sings, “I see you in the light sometimes/When it’s high/Getting high tonight” and
“This song’s been playing
In the back of my head for so long
Knew that you’d come along
The crystal balls shining.”
And the dreamy backing vocalists and the guitar that comes roaring in are pure bliss, like kissing the face of God.
“Broke Down Casino” sounds like somebody else—some New York band—it’s got propulsion galore and features Sloan Peterson on backing vocals but Dope Lemon still sounds like his chill self and I dig the way it goes out with Stone and Peterson singing “I just wanted you to think about me too/I just wanted you to think about me too/Just for a little while.” “Slinging Dimes” is this incredibly slow one with big “Walk on the Wild Side” bass and Dope Lemon singing “Do do do do do do” and imparting wisdom and as usual he’s got getting high on his mind, but my favorite part are the rumbling guitar solo and the way he sings:
“I don’t want to be
The last man standing no more
I want to flow down the river
With a big bear named Moe.”
“Give Me That Fire” is a dreamy soul number that has Dope Lemon singing in a falsetto about his girl and is the sexiest thing this side of Barry White—naturally he tosses off the lines “Makes me think of you/When we sat at the beach smoked some reefer and listened to some tunes” because he wouldn’t be Dope Lemon and the Stoner Yacht Rock King if he didn’t, but mostly he sounds like a real lover man and the slickest customer on the block, “tryna bring the house down with everything I got.”
Closer “Lemon Tree” is a psychedelic rhapsody in with this big wall of lysergic sound and the female backing singers sounding all exotic like they’re phoning it in from Kashmir while Dope Lemon, his voice distorted, lazily singing insane shit like “Come with me, Peggy Lee/There’s lemons in them trees/In a dream, in a dream/They’re coming for me.” No choruses to disturb the sanctity of the drone, flute, and zither come in and out, and basically all you have to do is relax on a Day-Glo cloud and float until somebody steps into the song and says,
“Hey here’s the deal
If life gives you lemons
Say, “Fuck the lemons” and bail”
after which Dope Lemon says,
“Yeah, no, you said it.”
Then a voice from out of a tie-dye haze saying (about a girl, naturally)
“As I stood next to her I detected a subtle odor of lemon
I became obsessed with lemons
I developed an insatiable thirst for lemonade
At night I dreamed of lemon groves.”
It’s some real Yellow Submarine shit is what it is.
I listen to Dope Lemon and I think maybe he’s right, maybe we all are spectacular golden gods and maybe you do need to see what’s good in the world, otherwise how you gonna live at all? But mostly what I think is Dope Lemon is producing some of the dopest music out there, and he’s making it look as easy as lying on your back in the Miami sunshine. “It’s gold, son, it’s gold.” That’s his message. And if that don’t cure your hypos, what’s gonna? You can’t afford his gasoline, son.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
