Drug Songs?

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blipvurt
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Drug Songs?

Post by blipvurt »

Quick 2-part opinion survey of boardies:

1. What is the BEST Spiritualized song about drug use?

2. Top 3 non-SPZ songs about drug use?
sm-iom
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by sm-iom »

Don't like this topic....feels like glamorising....

Unless people want to wheel out all the ones about pain.
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by BzaInSpace »

blipvurt wrote: 1. What is the BEST Spiritualized song about drug use?
There are absolutely no best songs about drug use.

Step 5: Get a life, etc.
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by MODLAB »

LOCKED

If you would like to talk about drugs or past experiences of drugs while listing to music, please go to the OTHER section.


THE MODS...
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by MODLAB »

Blipvurt will re-phrase his queries for his project.

Best,

Mark
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by bunnyben »

see, no big deal, good work mark, it's nice that you care :D
'raging and weeping are left on the early road
now each in his holy hill
the glittering and hurting days are alomst done
then let us compare mythologies
i have learned my elaborate lie
of soaring crosses and poisened thorns'
scratch
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by scratch »

good move..

not that I had anything to say..

..but if I must choose an antismack song then this one is the bestest!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XqyGoE2Q4Y
"the greatest example of self-violation in the history of art"
redcloud
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by redcloud »

Gotta love 'The Pusher'...I have a very early recording from '67 when Steppenwolf had just changed their name from The Sparrows and became Steppenwolf. They whig-out for about 10 minutes before gliding effortlessly into a gloriously sweet early version of 'The Pusher'.

BUT...for me...the greatest and saddest anti-drug song of them all: 'Signed DC' by Love. It reads as a suicide note for all others to heed the warning and stay away from smack. Both versions (acoustic and electric) are tremendously powerful. It's hard not to be moved by this song.

And, it would be closely followed by Buffy St. Marie's version of 'Codine', which is equally full of sorrow and pain.
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by nickh »

redcloud wrote:

BUT...for me...the greatest and saddest anti-drug song of them all: 'Signed DC' by Love. It reads as a suicide note for all others to heed the warning and stay away from smack. Both versions (acoustic and electric) are tremendously powerful. It's hard not to be moved by this song.
You beat me to it redcloud and you put it better than I would have. I only know the version from the 1st record though, great song but pretty harrowing.
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by ORBITAL »

Drugs.

That is all.
Work is the scourge of the drinking classes
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by redcloud »

nickh wrote: I only know the version from the 1st record though, great song but pretty harrowing.
Here is the electric version (from their 5th LP, "Out Here" released late '69/early '70):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H0LCsOrpRw
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by nickh »

redcloud wrote:
nickh wrote: I only know the version from the 1st record though, great song but pretty harrowing.
Here is the electric version (from their 5th LP, "Out Here" released late '69/early '70):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H0LCsOrpRw
Thanks! Incredibly can’t find the 1st album version on Youtube, I didn’t know the White Stripes had covered it. Or Spirea X!

Would also say that Call the Doctor and If I Should Die follow a similar thread too.
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by marmalade »

Curtis Mayfield - Stone Junkie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ2w-IFInmI

Nat Adderly - Quit It

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8oCMH7rRFY

The Dramatics - The Devil Is Dope

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy2_zwvMFa4

The Mighty Hannibal - The Truth Shall Make You Free

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTPz0NCsAQ4

Curtis Mayfield - Stone Junkie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ2w-IFInmI

:wink:
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by marmalade »

redcloud
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by redcloud »

nickh wrote:
Thanks! Incredibly can’t find the 1st album version on Youtube,.
I thought exactly the same thing last night when I was posting the electric version. It seems somebody has posted almost the entire 1st LP on youtube except 'Signed DC'!! :roll:

Oh well, we know how harrowing it is!
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by runcible »

I'll throw in The Ruts for anti-smack songs which is ironic as singer Malcolm Owen died of a heroin overdose.
H Eyes (punk stylee):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGcRq2eLsqE
Love In Vain (reggae stylee - the Ruts are about the only white men I know who can actually play reggae):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGcRq2eLsqE

And as an all-out mega lysergic wild card what about a highly unexpected tripster by Talking Heads - 'Drugs':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGpE2oXf0aE
Talking Heads have a major altered-states side. 'Drugs' might be obvious but 'Seen And Not Seen' is genuinely psychedelic. Get fucked up and listen to the lyrics here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACpJELkIbH0

Finally, returning to raw psych I've always thought Factory's 'Path Through The Forest' is one of the ultimate acid tracks, possibly the greatest of the legendary English underground psych songs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xMGH1Ue8UA
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by redcloud »

marmalade wrote:here's a pretty good list

http://gloriousnoise.com/post/the_100_g ... g_songs_ev

Ummmm....is it just me or did they omit 'Slip Inside This House' by the 13th Floor Elevators? :roll:

That is totally inexcusable!
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by redcloud »

Following runcible's list...here are my choices for greatest LSD tracks by American bands (please not I am not glorifying nor promoting its use...I am merely pointing out some great songs written about it!):

1. 'Slip Inside This House'-13th Floor Elevators (Tommy Hall's spiritual guidance through chemistry).
2. 'Bass Strings'-Country Joe & The Fish (the ultimate hippie acid crash pad tune).
3. 'Section 43'-Country Joe & The Fish (an acid trip condensed into 7.5 minute instrumental).
4. 'RA-MA'-Cold Sun (probably more inspired by peyote than acid...but still the hallucinations ooze from this tune).
5. 'Mind Flowers'-Ultimate Spinach (quite possibly the scariest acid trip ever committed to music!).
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by semisynthetic »

Gee whiz, you guys, you got me there; I can't think of any good aspirin commercials; SPEEDY, the alka seltzer kid can sing; [Baeyer Pharmaceuticals now practically DENY Heroin even EXISTS. That was a stupid acetylation; the parent compound should have left alone]. I have Timmy singing on demo discs, but Dr, Leary sang worse than I do, so, no; Gosh, I guess I'll go to the Malt Shop, and ask old man Higgins, the Pharmacist about Drug Songs, be right back!



Gee, Mr. Higgins sure slurs his words about closing time, but I asked him, politely, and he was singing


Sammy Davis Jr. et al "The Candyman"

At least I THINK that's what he was saying!
"Everything is a Poison; it is the amount or degree that separates one Poison from another"
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by sunray »

Cab Calloway "Reefer Man" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D44pyeEvhcQ :D

Coincidentally with all this drug talk going on, tomorrow is the 73rd anniversary of Albert Hoffmann's discovery of acid.
Nineteen...Nineteen...Six Five
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by MODLAB »

Primal Scream: “Loaded”
The Fall: “Totally Wired”
Ella Fitzgerald w/Chick Webb & His Orchestra: “Wacky Dust”
Grandmaster Flash: “White Lines”
Rolling Stones: “Sister Morphine”
Sly & The Revolutionaries: "Marijuana"

could go on and on and on.... <------- DRUGS!
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by scratch »

runcible wrote: And as an all-out mega lysergic wild card what about a highly unexpected tripster by Talking Heads - 'Drugs':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGpE2oXf0aE
Talking Heads have a major altered-states side.
Little creatures is not one of their best records and it´s probably because I was 12 when I bought it, but took me more than a quarter of a century to find out that "and she was" is about dropping acid..

as a kid I had these nice hallucinations of drifting around in space and heavens before falling asleep and used to think the song was about that..
so for me it´s pretty sad that it just is yet another song about an acid trip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZAyxUMfBvA&ob=av2e
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by redcloud »

Another brilliant, swirly, floating tune about LSD...these songs could only have been written in the 1960's. This tune is off their second record (H.P. Lovecraft-II). These guys were from Chicago but after their first record they relocated to California and picked up that chilled out, west coast vibe and made their second record, which I highly recommend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O15IfICAy8
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by runcible »

The acid/tripping songs are endless and the good ones are pretty amazing. These are all blatantly about the subject:
Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows, She Said She Said, Lucy In The Sky...
Kim Fowley - The Trip
Hendrix - Purple Haze, Are You Experienced?
The Open Mind - Magic Potion
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit

Another track by Factory, 'Try A Little Sunshine', is absolutely glorious.
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by runcible »

redcloud wrote:'Mind Flowers'-Ultimate Spinach (quite possibly the scariest acid trip ever committed to music!).
This song has one of the most worrying and proposterous psychedelic lyrics in psychedelic history. If I remember rightly 'I am falling into the quicksand of my troubled mind'. Paved the way for the brown acid at Woodstock I reckon.
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by bunnyben »

bing crosby- white christmas
'raging and weeping are left on the early road
now each in his holy hill
the glittering and hurting days are alomst done
then let us compare mythologies
i have learned my elaborate lie
of soaring crosses and poisened thorns'
scratch
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by scratch »

runcible wrote: Hendrix - Purple Haze
not so sure that one was about drugs originally..
Hendrix was a major sci-fi nerd and took the term and part of the imagery from a novel.. inspiring him to write this weird lovesong that the public later decided was all about LSD.

It also seems like Jimi never had dropped acid when he wrote it..

I don´t know.. but it seems a bit too easy to claim that every confusing and dreamy pop song is about drugs... although a lot of them are of course :roll:
..and purple haze has certainly been regarded a drug song by most listeners - and in history that counts more than the original intention, whatever that was.
He called it a lovesong inspired by his dreams and it might have been just that.
"the greatest example of self-violation in the history of art"
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by redcloud »

RE: 'Purple Haze':
scratch wrote: not so sure that one was about drugs originally..
Hendrix was a major sci-fi nerd and took the term and part of the imagery from a novel.. inspiring him to write this weird lovesong that the public later decided was all about LSD.

It also seems like Jimi never had dropped acid when he wrote it..

I don´t know.. but it seems a bit too easy to claim that every confusing and dreamy pop song is about drugs... although a lot of them are of course :roll:
..and purple haze has certainly been regarded a drug song by most listeners - and in history that counts more than the original intention, whatever that was.
He called it a lovesong inspired by his dreams and it might have been just that.
I too have read this...although I read that it was inspired by a dream he had about walking under the sea. We get that aquamarine imagery a lot from Hendrix, most notably on '1983'.

At a time when LSD was receiving much negative attention it may have been professional suicide for Hendrix to admit he wrote a short pop song about being blasted on acid! Thus, his roundabout explanation of it.

I have also read that he may never have taken LSD prior to Monterey. Hmmmm....again...who knows? Those who talk about these things will have sketchy memories and were no doubt experimenting too. How they can pinpoint a date so accurately is beyond me. But then again, having read Phil Lesh's autobiography '"Searching For The Sound" I was astounded by the crystal clear details he described of several of his acid trips that took place many, many years ago! There are certainly moments I would expect him to remember but he seems to recall time, place and all points in between his trips with perfect memory. Considering how many trips he took makes it even more impressive!
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by redcloud »

runcible wrote:
redcloud wrote:'Mind Flowers'-Ultimate Spinach (quite possibly the scariest acid trip ever committed to music!).
This song has one of the most worrying and proposterous psychedelic lyrics in psychedelic history. If I remember rightly 'I am falling into the quicksand of my troubled mind'. Paved the way for the brown acid at Woodstock I reckon.
That's the one! It is pretty fucking scary but acid could be both things to people (euphoric-life changing-spiritual door opener or a fucking nightmare!).
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by MODLAB »

redcloud wrote:RE: 'Purple Haze':



At a time when LSD was receiving much negative attention it may have been professional suicide for Hendrix to admit he wrote a short pop song about being blasted on acid! Thus, his roundabout explanation of it.
Also known as the 8 Miles High Syndrome.

:)


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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by bunnyben »

'raging and weeping are left on the early road
now each in his holy hill
the glittering and hurting days are alomst done
then let us compare mythologies
i have learned my elaborate lie
of soaring crosses and poisened thorns'
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by spzretent »

Not a drug song per se but a song where the person clearly got swept up while under the influence and just sort of let it go.
Amazing I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T75YklbU ... re=related
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by Shaun »

Maggot Brain.
What more can the heart of a man desire?
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by toomilk »

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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by clewsr »

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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by nickh »

clewsr wrote:a bit salacious, but anyway - http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/201 ... _lyric.php
“You gave me drugs / You said would cure my ills / They may cure yours / But mine were with me still"

I could never quite work out what he was singing on that song…to think they used that song for a popular chocolate bar ad :)
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by runcible »

nickh wrote:“You gave me drugs / You said would cure my ills / They may cure yours / But mine were with me still"
I could never quite work out what he was singing on that song…to think they used that song for a popular chocolate bar ad :)
I always wondered if that was a pop at Pete K...
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by Hofstadter »

A bit blatant, but surpirsed nobody has mentioned Heroin (vu) yet. Just in terms of form reflecting content alone that song is pretty great.
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by somakoma »

Keep it down

Scotland´s finest... on heroin while singing an anti-drug song.. pete brown - jack´s lyricist - wrote the words as a desperate attempt to make him cut down on the smack.. so jack is singing things to himself that he wouldn´t allow people say to him.
It didn´t work of course

but the song works..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLHm-kEn-vQ <-- steve hunter on gtr

here in a version with a rolling stone dropout:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG9J-1zIn34 <--- mick taylor on gtr
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by clewsr »

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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by redcloud »

So many great covers of this song...but there is no denying the original version is easily the best and one of the most haunting and harrowing songs about addiction ever recorded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3bfqlTC ... re=related
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by clewsr »

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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by The Dr »

nickh wrote:
clewsr wrote:a bit salacious, but anyway - http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/201 ... _lyric.php
“You gave me drugs / You said would cure my ills / They may cure yours / But mine were with me still"

I could never quite work out what he was singing on that song…to think they used that song for a popular chocolate bar ad :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JRvTbG3abk

All your two-bit friends
They're shootin' you up with pills
They said that it was good for you
That it would cure your ills
“You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness

'Well, who knows, who knows,' he replied.

'Dostoevsky's dead,' said the citizeness, but somehow not very confidently.

'I protest!' Behemoth exclaimed hotly. 'Dostoevsky is immortal!”
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by The Dr »

clewsr wrote:this thread made me laugh - http://drownedinsound.com/community/boa ... ic/4357970
yeah, the hawley song- i thought it was a beautiful slightly twisted love song- then i saw him live and he introduced it as a song about addiction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYk83xz3dQ

great song mind you :D
“You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness

'Well, who knows, who knows,' he replied.

'Dostoevsky's dead,' said the citizeness, but somehow not very confidently.

'I protest!' Behemoth exclaimed hotly. 'Dostoevsky is immortal!”
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Re: Drug Songs?

Post by Broc »

The Cramps - Drug Train!
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