"The Pusher" is a rock song written by Hoyt Axton in 1963, made popular by the 1969 movie Easy Rider which used Steppenwolf's version to accompany the opening scenes showing drug trafficking.

The lyrics of the song distinguish between a dealer in drugs such as marijuana—who "will sell you lots of sweet dreams"—and a pusher of hard drugs such as heroin—a "monster" who does not care "if you live or if you die".

Organist Goldy McJohn, who recorded the original Steppenwolf version, said the version that appears on Early Steppenwolf performed by The Sparrows, a predecessor band to Steppenwolf in 1967 at the Matrix came about when singer John Kay and Jerry Edmonton were late for a performance: Axton sometimes recalled in his shows how he discovered, many years after "The Pusher" had been a hit, that the song had never been published.

He asked his mother, Mae Boren Axton, who ran his publishing company, how it had been missed.

Hoyt told his mother, "Mom, it's a biblical curse!