"Little Green Bag" is a 1969 song written by Dutch musicians Jan Visser and George Baker (born Hans Bouwens), and recorded by the George Baker Selection at the band's own expense. The track was released as the George Baker Selection's debut single by Dutch label Negram, the B-side being "Pretty Little Dreamer".

Background

The track's original title was "Little Greenback", which is slang for a US dollar. However, the single was given the erroneous title "Little Green Bag", which some took to be a "bag of marijuana". The lyrics of the song add to the belief that it is about marijuana, since it describes quite similarly the confusion of trying to find the bag. The "Little Green Bag" title was then retained for all subsequently released versions of the single, as well as the group's 1970 debut album, also titled Little Green Bag. The single peaked at No. 9 on the Dutch Top 40 singles chart and No. 3 in Belgium. In the United States, the single reached No. 16 in the middle of 1970 on the Cashbox chart and No. 21 on the US Billboard Hot 100. In 1992, when the song was used in Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs with song writers cited as Jan Gerbrand Visser and Benjamino Bouwens, it became an international cult classic. Also that year, the song reached No. 1 in Japan after being used in a Japanese whiskey commercial.

Charts

Cover versions