Not surprisingly, songs about heroin are a dime a dozen. Skag has been fueling songwriters for yonks and, being the frisky little devil it is, occasionally nominates the odd one here and there for No. 1 on the hit parade in the local morgue. With a bullet. Young pups might feel like they’ve earned their stripes going a few rounds with the coke-twisted A&R poodles down at the record company, but wait ‘til they jab a point or two of fentanyl-laced china white into their median cubital vein. In the words of one fat-assed junkie burn-out who bit the big one in a Parisian bathtub, “no one gets out of here alive.” I once lived in a junkie house, where taped to the kitchen wall was an afternoon tabloid poster announcing THE HORRORS OF HEROIN. Somebody had scrawled under it, “Too expensive. And not enough.”
This list is far from comprehensive, and we’ve jettisoned the obvious. Sorry, kids, but the antics of the likes of Slash and Lord Überjunkie himself, Keith Richards, often felt like carefully crafted publicity stunts; hence no “Mr. Brownstone” or “Coming Down Again.”
Lou Reed made it, but not for the obvious. Scott Weiland was a notorious dope fiend, but managed to separate his art from his extracurricular pursuits. As did Chet Baker, Billie Holiday, and Miles Davis. Believe me, nothing quite beats In a Silent Way driving the soul and slowing the aorta while traversing the ionosphere on Captain Morpheus’ zeppelin cruise to Xanadu (er, that’s Coleridge, not Olivia, for all you illiterate Molly heads).
So kids, tourniquet that ol’ arm off, sharpen yr works on the strike surface of a matchbook, then take a stab in the dark with these.
The Jim Carroll Band, “People Who Died”
Nothing quite says “heroin” like NYC in the ‘70s. And what better song to attach a needle to an eye dropper to (while cooking in the base of a crushed soda can) than this happy lil’ ditty. There’s nothing like standing in a two-foot snow drift on Avenue D waiting to cop a glassine envelope of “boys” from a bucket being lowered from a warehouse roof. While, uptown… “G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten, so they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan.” This song is brutal: a roll call of Carroll’s dead friends, some of whom started dropping at 11 years old. Carroll himself cosied up to skag early on in the piece; by 13 he was financing his habit with handjobs around 53rd and 3rd. I guess a 401(k) wasn’t figuring high on his outlook. His memoir, The Basketball Diaries, came out when he was 30. Some argue Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t handsome enough to play Jim in the movie. Meh, who says dope fucks you up?
James Reyne, “Hammerhead”
You’ve never heard of this guy, but if you’re that interested, “paging Dr. Google.” Now this song… I don’t know what Reyne’s terms of reference for it were, but it encapsulates addiction to a tee. (“Hammer,” by the way, is Australian rhyming slang for smack. Hammer and tack.) “Like kissing God is what we do. Let’s go to waste.” Works for me. Given that Reyne originally fronted a band so sunny they made Hanson look like Manson, this is quite a left-field offering. Oh, and Olivia Newton John, she of the snide reference above… that’s her on backing vocals. Naughty Sandy Olsson.
Warren Zevon, “Carmelita”
Ahhh, romance and heroin. If the cutting agent doesn’t make you puke, two love-struck junkies always will. “Here, babe, let me squeeze that boil in your asshole.” Zevon claimed he had a, er, brief association with heroin, but don’t they all? This slice of country music wouldn’t sound out of place in an opium den, and its references to radio valves and Ensenada lend it a tinge of old-world charm. Legendary punk GG Allin was one of many who covered “Carmelita.” He also turned blue in Johnny Puke’s apartment. And not from the Pioneer Chicken Stand’s fried wings.
Lou Reed, “Street Hassle”
I saw an interview where some Eurotrash nimrod tried to engage Uncle Lou in a discussion about “Perfect Day” being the ultimate paean to smack. After Lou set him straight about it being literal, he death-stared him and said, “I actually wrote a song about heroin. It’s called ‘Heroin.’” Damn, we miss him. Anyway, back to business. What do you get when you assemble junkies, hookers, $80 fucks, cellos, and Bruce Springsteen? This delicious mini-epic. The song’s culmination is an OD being dealt with in the old-school way. “Hey, that cunt’s not breathing… why don’t you grab your lady by the feet and lay her out in the darkened street.” None of that naloxone up the schnozz and a quick 911 call malarkey here, kids. No siree. We can deal with all that guilt and shit when we get to NA.
Marianne Faithfull, “Times Square”
One should always take rock musician biographies with a grain of salt. I mean, these are people in the “we sell fantasy to squares” business, so it stands to reason they need to prop up their dwindling relevance with confected tales of drama and decadence. “Aww, man, I was in a junkyard shooting crystal meth into my eyeballs” usually translates to “I hit rock bottom when my pilot went on vacation.” Not Marianne. It’s a miracle this poster girl for the swinging ‘60s didn’t end up swinging from a rafter. Together, she and heroin were Bonnie and Clyde—and that was the only aspect of together she knew for years. Drug-fucked, homeless, and hated, she clawed her way back with the extraordinary LP Broken English. “Times Square” is not on it. “Times Square” captures the solitude and abandonment of addiction quite unlike any other, with the possible exception of kd lang’s “My Last Cigarette.” Marianne wraps “Times Square” up with this great junkie truism: “And if I die gaining my senses / Wake up in a hotel, staring at the ceiling.” Now there’s the loneliness of the long-distance dope fiend.
Ray Charles, “I Don’t Need No Doctor”
When being covered by the likes of W.A.S.P or John Mayer, this song could be heard as a rollicking jaunt about a broken heart. But given the Bishop of Atlanta’s long-term heroin addiction, and the fact that he recorded this at the nadir of his using, there’s a certain poignancy we need to attach to it. Here was an international superstar transcending all manner of social and cultural bigotry while maintaining a raging habit. We know the kiss Ray is craving, and it probably came in the form of some Grade 4 Elephant Foot dope hot off a 707 troop transporter from Da Nang.
Dr. John, “Junko Partner”
Remember that wonderful scene in Gridlock’d where Tupac Shakur and Tim Roth’s characters are scuttling from one city health service to another to try to get on methadone? THIS should have been playing throughout that shot. Long-term dope fiends know the inevitable disappointment in every next taste, but the hope and intention hangs on a lot longer. Those two screwballs nailed it with their frenetic shuffle, as does Mac Rebbennack with this particular cover of an old blues standard. Incorporating the swing and feel of New Orleans R&B, “Junko Partner” is imbued with all the fun and anticipation that comes with copping with your best friend, ignoring the reality you would sell each other down the river for a shot. Rat loyalty rules the streets.
Alice In Chains, “Junkhead”
In which our hero Layne Staley rephrases the legendary Brando quote from The Wild One and leaves us all pondering whether he should have pulled back just a bit on the chorus’ proclamation that “I do it a lot.” By all means, Layne, do what ya gotta do. But did you have to do that much? Let’s face it—these guys were heroin. They referenced it repeatedly throughout their canon, and nowhere does it punch through as hard as in “Junkhead.” The relentless drone of the music, itself a testament to the exhausting progression of a habit, coupled with Staley’s agony-fueled vocals encapsulates heroin addiction. (Frankly, I’m surprised smack isn’t referred to as “alice” or “layne.” Or have I been off the corner for that long?)
Dave Navarro, “Hungry”
While Navarro’s onetime bandmate Anthony Kiedis turned himself into a professional junkie with both “Under the Bridge” and his biography Scar Tissue, 16-year-old Dave coped with the murder of his mother and aunt by getting loaded on smack and withdrawing into himself. The result was one very drug-fucked unit doing shit with guitars most of his contemporaries could only dream of. He bounced from Jane’s Addiction into Red Hot Chili Peppers then back again, with the occasional “mental health holiday”—along with some of his associates from those two bands. From this we can safely assume most of their combined business meetings probably took place in the foyer of the Betty Ford Clinic. When Dave finally got around to doing a solo album, the result was a tour de force that, typically, left most critics scratching their heads. “Hungry” deals with both his mother’s murder and his heroin addiction. It has a level of angst on par with Staley, but Navarro goes that little bit further in the poetry stakes. Please leave me here in the empty world, indeed.
Johnny Cash, “Hurt”
Finally, where art and life collide. NIN’s original song would have made it here hands down, but like Jimi appropriating “All Along the Watchtower,” the Man In Black has respectfully taken this gem and cut it into a diamond—albeit a beautifully rough and flawed one. Whether or not Cash shot dope is irrelevant. He conveys a level of grief and self-loathing that would give any junkie pause for thought. So emotional is his reading of “Hurt,” one can easily imagine it playing while some poor bastard gets loaded on a lethal shot of fentanyl, with their last two thoughts being “let me go” and “bury me to this fucker.”