This might be the first anti-drug rock song. It finds lead singer Mark Lindsay telling a girl that drugs won't fill the emptiness inside her, and she needs to get straight before it's too late. "Kicks" in the song is a stand-in for "drugs."

The last thing most teenagers wanted to hear was another warning about the dangers of drugs, but this song didn't come off preachy - it sounded more like a honest concern from friend than the finger wagging of an authority figure.
This was written by the husband-and-wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who were in their mid-20s at the time but already established songwriters, with "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" and "Blame It On The Bossa Nova" among their credits. They also wrote the Animals hit "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place"; when producer Terry Melcher went to work on the Paul Revere & the Raiders album Midnight Ride, he asked Mann and Weil for a similar song. They sent him "Kicks," which they had originally written hoping it would help get a friend off drugs.

Terry Melcher started working with the group after doing production work on The Byrds' first two albums. In 1968, he rented his house to director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate. Melcher knew Charles Manson and worked with him on some projects before abandoning them. In 1969, Manson's "family" killed Tate and four of her friends in Melcher's house. Melcher became much more secluded after the murders, but did help write The Beach Boys 1987 hit "Kokomo." He died of cancer in 2004.
This was the first Top 10 hit for Paul Revere & the Raiders, who were famous for performing while dressed in American Revolutionary War soldier uniforms.
Many kids played this in their garage bands, often unaware that it was an anti-drug song. Ace Frehley of Kiss, who covered it on his 2020 album Origins Vol. 2, told Songfacts: "When I was a kid, I used to come home from school and they'd be on TV. I was exposed to their music, and I always liked the song 'Kicks' because it had a great riff. Now that I listen to the lyrics, I realize that it's a really good anti-drug song, and it's a good message for the youth of today."