What is the best song about Heroin?

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Isn't Perfect day about heroin? Or some other drug? Or about how great the BBC is? I can't remember. Anyway it's a great song (the original not the terrible BBC version with Heather Small...arrrgghhhh).

And what about Golden Brown? That's one of the best things The Stranglers ever did.

― Ned T. Rifle, Monday, 17 October 2005 06:23 (twenty years ago)

YES YES YES Perfect Day is an excellent song. I heart Lou Reed. Maybe it was "Heroin" redux but a better song all around.

― salexander / sophie (salexander), Monday, 17 October 2005 06:36 (twenty years ago)

"MMbop"

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 17 October 2005 06:40 (twenty years ago)

I always sorta regarded the Cowboy Junkies song "sweet jane" as a heroin song, but don't know... maybe its the junkie in their name.. but it seems pretty high.

You know that song is a VU cover, right?

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Monday, 17 October 2005 07:12 (twenty years ago)

Love-signed d.c.

Curtis Mayfield-stone junkie.

― Ellis, Monday, 17 October 2005 09:48 (twenty years ago)

"Needle in the Hay" by Elliott Smith.

OTM. I'm not the biggest ES fan in the world but that song is tremendous. The way he sings the last word is a supreme example of how to express incredible rage and bitterness, quietly.

― xero (xero), Monday, 17 October 2005 10:03 (twenty years ago)

The last word of the last verse, I mean -- there's another chorus after it.

― xero (xero), Monday, 17 October 2005 10:06 (twenty years ago)

dan monaghan, "searching harlem for heroin"

― sibsi (sibsi), Monday, 17 October 2005 10:06 (twenty years ago)

the kids from grange hill - "just say no"

― zebedee (zebedee), Monday, 17 October 2005 10:34 (twenty years ago)

i never thought of perfect day as a heroin song!?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 17 October 2005 10:36 (twenty years ago)

as Tom said elsewhere the other day, it is 10 trillion times more boring a song if you read it as being about heroin

― zebedee (zebedee), Monday, 17 October 2005 10:38 (twenty years ago)

no way! it is perfect as a song about unrequited love.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 17 October 2005 10:43 (twenty years ago)

exactly - so we agree

― zebedee (zebedee), Monday, 17 October 2005 10:45 (twenty years ago)

Golden Brown seconded.

― when something smacks of something (dave225.3), Monday, 17 October 2005 10:51 (twenty years ago)

Agreed, but the "Trainspotting" music dudes certainly interpreted it as a stoner song as it's the music in the *overdose* scene. Songs don't have to have just one meaning; they can be what you want them to be. Sorry that sounds all very postmodern, but it's an old-fashioned concept really. Aren't songs like poetry anyway, the meanings are kind of slippery and abstract.

― salexander / sophie (salexander), Monday, 17 October 2005 10:57 (twenty years ago)

Also, to the extent that it can all be read as "about heroin," the entire oeuvre of Spacemen 3.

― xero (xero), Monday, 17 October 2005 11:02 (twenty years ago)

xero OTM!

esp.

"Call The Doctor"
"Walkin' With Jesus"

― sleeve (sleeve), Monday, 17 October 2005 14:11 (twenty years ago)

Why is it more boring if it's about heroin, more boring than being about unrequited love?

It's also, of course, an ode to sangria...

― Ned, Monday, 17 October 2005 14:28 (twenty years ago)

U2--Bad

But it's about a junkie, not the drug itself

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Monday, 17 October 2005 15:52 (twenty years ago)

"She's Like A Shot (In The Arm)" - Cop Shoot Cop

― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 17 October 2005 16:23 (twenty years ago)

Gun Club - "She's Like Heroin To Me"
Patti Smith - "We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together"

― nickn (nickn), Monday, 17 October 2005 19:01 (twenty years ago)

Patti Smith - "We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together"

You probably know that's a VU/Lou Reed song -- tere's a version on 1969 and one on Street Hassle, and maybe one or two other places too. None of those have a rap about how "the blackest thing in Harlem is white," though.

― xero (xero), Monday, 17 October 2005 19:50 (twenty years ago)

shaddap your face by joe dolce

― cake (cake), Monday, 17 October 2005 20:25 (twenty years ago)

Spacemen 3 came up, but most of Spiritualized pre-Amazing Grace too, especially "Cop Shoot Cop."

― mike powell (mike powell), Monday, 17 October 2005 20:32 (twenty years ago)

xp- Argh, I meant Let it Come Down.

― mike powell (mike powell), Monday, 17 October 2005 20:33 (twenty years ago)

Butthole Surfers - Mexican Caravan

― Sweat Loaf (Sweat Loaf), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 04:51 (twenty years ago)

The Only Ones, Another Girl, Another Planet

... and about half of their other songs too

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 08:45 (twenty years ago)

"We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together"

This isn't about heroin.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 08:48 (twenty years ago)

Love, Your Friend and Mine (Neil's Song)

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 08:51 (twenty years ago)

This isn't about heroin.

True. Patti Smith's cover of it was, though.

― xero (xero), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 09:04 (twenty years ago)

Or at least it made reference to heroin. On further consideration I think the mention is too brief, oblique, and incidental to warrant describing her version as being "about heroin," after all.

― xero (xero), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 09:08 (twenty years ago)

Laid Back - "White Horse"

― ewmy, Tuesday, 18 October 2005 11:02 (twenty years ago)

"Running to Stand Still" - u2
"Mr. Brownstone" - GNR

― Jeff Goodwin (White Dolemite), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 17:36 (twenty years ago)

Not a song, but...

Only Stupid Bastards use Heroin - New Model Army

― Niall, Tuesday, 18 October 2005 20:12 (twenty years ago)

Mudhoney's "In The Blood" seems to be about a junkie:

You swear you still got the fire
But when I touch you
You feel so cold
Your as hollow as your burned out eyes
Nothing left
Nowhere to go

Nowhere
Nowhere
Nowhere
You got nowhere to go

Desire burns you from the inside out
How does it feel
Not to feel?
I can't stand it when your around
Reminding me how you used to be
Real

You used to be
You used to be
You used to be
You used to be real

In the blood, it gets in the blood
In the blood, it gets in the blood
In the blood, it gets in the blood
In the blood, it gets in the blood

Woh, oh, oh, oh
Woh, oh, oh, oh
Woh, oh, oh, oh
Woh, oh, oh
It gets in the blood

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 20:25 (twenty years ago)

maybe some of you aren't aware that "there she goes" by the la's (who???) was originally by sixpence none the richer and is about jesus not some nasty old drug!

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 20:35 (twenty years ago)

The worst song about heroin was Eagle-Eye Cherry's "Shooting Up in Vain", which wasn't even as good as its title.

― Erik The Mainer (EZSnappin), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 21:09 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I'd probably say "Things'll Never Be The Same" by Spacemen 3

Never was one of my favourites of theirs though.

― Tokyo Ghost Stories (Tokyo Ghost Stories), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 01:28 (twenty years ago)

BERT JANSCH - NEEDLE OF DEATH

― jared, Wednesday, 19 October 2005 01:37 (twenty years ago)

four months pass...

"There she goes" was NOT originally by sixpence none the richer... La's made that song before sixpence existed. . .

― Spork, Sunday, 12 March 2006 04:40 (twenty years ago)

Black Sabbath - "Hand of Doom" deserves a mention. "Mr Brownstone" is really good too.

― Sundar (sundar), Sunday, 12 March 2006 05:53 (twenty years ago)

Is Wilco's "shot in the arm"'s about heroin?!

― sam the man, Sunday, 12 March 2006 06:49 (twenty years ago)

"Mutiny in Heaven", der Birfday Party. That song actually scared me the first time I heard it. Can't believe it hasn't made it into this thread.

― bendy (bendy), Sunday, 12 March 2006 07:49 (twenty years ago)

steely dan 'time out of mind'

― dave q (listerine), Sunday, 12 March 2006 08:23 (twenty years ago)

Not the best but the lyric "Shoot it up and go for a ride" comes to mind after Pink Floyd or Spacemen 3/Spiritualized so.

'I Never Want An Easy Life If Me and He Were Ever to Get There'

― BeeOK (boo radley), Sunday, 12 March 2006 09:49 (twenty years ago)

"Mutiny in Heaven", der Birfday Party. That song actually scared me the first time I heard it. Can't believe it hasn't made it into this thread. "

Also "Pleasure avalanche" by the BP, from the same ep.

― sam the man, Sunday, 12 March 2006 09:52 (twenty years ago)

My vote for "The Needle And The Damage Done" mainly because of the message of the lyrics.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 12 March 2006 11:13 (twenty years ago)

NINA HAGEN Y'ALL

"Smack Jack" rules my world, one of the scariest drug songs ever.

― sleeve (sleeve), Sunday, 12 March 2006 18:03 (twenty years ago)

four months pass...

All of LAMF
One Track Mind
Chinese Rocks
Pirate love
It's not Enough
Get off the Phone...
everyone a love song to heroin

― sonofstan (sonofstan), Friday, 14 July 2006 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

"No X-Mas for John Quays"

also, whenever i hear the psyfurs' talk talk talk anymore, kinda seems like a cocaine concept album ... lyrically and energy-arc-wise, anyhow

― literalisp (literalisp), Friday, 14 July 2006 23:15 (nineteen years ago)

and also, whether or not it is, you can pretty much read "china girl" as a heroin song.

― literalisp (literalisp), Friday, 14 July 2006 23:21 (nineteen years ago)

also Ray Charles' 'you don't know me' seems to reek of heroin, though its not easy top pin down why

― sonofstan (sonofstan), Friday, 14 July 2006 23:30 (nineteen years ago)

"I Think I'm In Love" by Spiritualized all the way.

― less-than three's Christiane F. (drowned in milk), Friday, 14 July 2006 23:58 (nineteen years ago)

"fuck me in the ass" by I Wish I Was Dead

― nicky lo-fi (nicky lo-fi), Saturday, 15 July 2006 04:05 (nineteen years ago)

Slow Death

― shieldforyoureyes (shieldforyoureyes), Saturday, 15 July 2006 05:33 (nineteen years ago)

Talk Talk 'I Believe In You'

probably the most tender song about herion i've ever heard..

― Jack Battery-Pack (Jack Battery-Pack), Saturday, 15 July 2006 05:39 (nineteen years ago)

Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" played lound made me feel like I was in that dizzy room of death

'Im searching for my mainline
I said I couldnt hit it sideways'

― nicky lo-fi (nicky lo-fi), Saturday, 15 July 2006 06:23 (nineteen years ago)

This thread needs a mention of the funeralSam Stone by John Prine, more of a depiction of the descent into addiction, than the drug itself.

― Ben Dot (1977), Saturday, 15 July 2006 09:59 (nineteen years ago)

"Givin' Up" by The Darkness is the greatest smack party anthem of all time.

― More Tongue Feldman (noodle vague), Saturday, 15 July 2006 10:14 (nineteen years ago)

> This thread needs a mention of the funeralSam Stone by John Prine, more of a depiction of the descent into addiction, than the drug itself.

Read header plzkthxbye.

― 100% CHAMPS with a Yes! Attitude. (Austin, Still), Saturday, 15 July 2006 14:44 (nineteen years ago)

But uh...hey! Thanks for the video!

― 100% CHAMPS with a Yes! Attitude. (Austin, Still), Saturday, 15 July 2006 14:49 (nineteen years ago)

"When it Hits My Blood" by John Vanderslice

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Saturday, 15 July 2006 15:22 (nineteen years ago)

They're called the Velvet Underground, and this case has been closed for nearly 40 years. Shame on you all!

― I Don't Believe in Bacteria (Bimble...), Sunday, 16 July 2006 00:47 (nineteen years ago)

Keith Don't Go by Nils Lofgren

― vacasmagras (vacasmagras), Sunday, 16 July 2006 01:48 (nineteen years ago)

"Keith Don't Go" Seconded
"golden brown" thirded
"White Lightning" by Silkworm? Probably about LSD, but a great song nonetheless..."watch the lightning for all your cues"

― J. Grizzle (trainsmoke), Sunday, 16 July 2006 02:19 (nineteen years ago)

Now and forever - "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 17 July 2006 02:53 (nineteen years ago)

"They're called the Velvet Underground, and this case has been closed for nearly 40 years. Shame on you all!"

OTM. This thread is useless.

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Monday, 17 July 2006 02:59 (nineteen years ago)

Nothing quite like people who closed their ears nearly 40 years ago posting on a music board.

― 100% CHAMPS with a Yes! Attitude. (Austin, Still), Monday, 17 July 2006 03:13 (nineteen years ago)

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