The meaning behind Tommy James’ 1971 pop-rock hit “Draggin’ the Line” is often disguised by its thick, drooping rhythm, dingy groove, and ear-perking lines like My dog Sam eats purple flowers. The message of the song is actually about life: working hard, loving well, and finding peace of mind through it all.
Videos by American Songwriter
The tune offers a near-three-minute dose of freedom from worry, work, and life’s woes that will have you too belting out I feel fine!
Behind the Song
“Draggin’ The Line” was born in 1970 on James’ farm in upstate New York. “It was a song I probably couldn’t have written in the city,” James shared of the song in an interview.
Alongside Bob King, James created the melody before the tune ever had words. “We just kind of toyed with it,” he said. “We wrote it, and it was a very repetitious track and a very hypnotic track. We had the track before we had the song. We went into the studio and just laid down, I don’t know, eight or 10 bars of track. We looped it and looped it and looped it, and created the hypnotic rhythm. Bob played bass, Russ Leslie from Neon played drums, and I played guitar. We just created loops of tape based on this little riff, and when we had three-plus minutes of it put together we stopped, and then we wrote the song around the track.”
Makin’ a livin’ the old, hard way / Takin’ and givin’ by day by day / I dig snow and rain and the bright sunshine / Draggin’ the line (Draggin’ the line), the song opens against its shuffling bass line, scratching strings, and muffled jangle.
Draggin’ the line, the deep-throated phrase that gets repeated throughout the song, reportedly came to James when the bass “spoke” the words to him. “It’s almost like the bass guitar was speaking,” he said. “And it just seemed to say ‘draggin’ the line’ to me. It’s weird, but it was like the bass was speaking … I was mimicking the bass. Making the bass with the words.
“‘Draggin’ the Line’ just meant working every day,” the artist said, chalking up the phrase and the song as a whole to the daily grind. “Nothing really very mysterious about it.” But a closer listen reveals the song is about a lot more than simply working hard.
The tune may contain a nonsense line like My dog Sam eats purple flowers, but it’s followed by the meaningful Ain’t got much, but what we got’s ours, a lyrics that reminds listeners to be appreciative of what they have. With the words, Lovin’ the free and feelin’ spirit / Of hugging a tree, when you get near it, James also emphasizes the importance of stopping to smell the roses, or in this case, hug the trees.
In the interview, James opined that this song was the first instance of the phrase “tree-hugger.” “The line of ‘hugging a tree’ in there became kind of a slang expression for people who are interested in the ecology,” he offered. “‘Tree Hugger’ came from that song … So that was the beginning of tree-huggin’ as we know it.”
The meaning of the song, however, comes with the carefree chorus:
I feel fine
I’m talkin’ ’bout peace of mind
I’m gonna take my time
I’m gettin’ the good sign
Draggin’ the line (Draggin’ the line)
Draggin’ the line (Draggin’ the line)
The lyric draggin’ the line may be about working hard every day, but in the song, the words seem to mean working hard in creating a life that you enjoy living.
(Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)
