Songfacts®:

• As the song's opening lyric states, "Amphetamine Annie" is "a song with a message." It's a warning about the destructive effects of hard drugs - something the band knew all too well.
  
  Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson and Bob "The Bear" Hite, the two founding members of Canned Heat, both died before the age of 40 from drug overdoses. Wilson went in 1970 at 27 years old, killed by acute barbiturate intoxication. In 1981, 38-year-old Hite passed away from a heroin overdose.
• "Amphetamine Annie" is a track on Canned Heat's second album, Boogie with Canned Heat, the first with songs they wrote themselves (their debut was all covers of old blues songs). Different members are credited with writing the various songs, but "Amphetamine Annie" is one of four credited to the band as a whole.
• Though their signature song "Going Up The Country" wouldn't come until their next album, Living the Blues (also released in 1968), Boogie with Canned Heat held up as the best-selling album the band ever released.
• The song is listed as an original, but it's really Albert King's "The Hunter" with different lyrics. In early '67, Canned Heat recorded a demo of "The Hunter." By the time November and the Boogie with Canned Heat recording sessions began, they'd elected to keep the music but use new words and a new title.
• Canned Heat released the Boogie with Canned Heat opening track, "Evil Woman," as a single in Japan with "Amphetamine Annie" as the B-side. In the US, "Evil Woman" played B-side to "World In A Jug" and "Amphetamine Annie" wasn't included with any singles.
  
  Despite not being released as a single in the US, DJs played the track a lot, and it became one of the favorite tunes among Canned Heat fans.