Drugs and rock music have an extended historical past, and it goes past the “intercourse, medicine, rock ‘n roll” cliche.
One of the most common, and tragically most destructive, narcotics have been heroin. Many artists have written songs about the powerfully addictive drug. Their tales run the gamut of the junkie experience.
We’ve collected the Top 30 Heroin Songs below. They include everything from dealers to overdoses, euphoric highs to rock bottoms, and everything in between.
30. (Tie) Little Feat, “China White”
From: Hoy-Hoy! (1981)
Two years after Little Feat broke up after founder Lowell George’s demise, they assembled an album of alternate variations and unreleased materials on Hoy-Hoy! A spotlight, “China White,” was a music George demoed within the early ’70s. As many different songs have achieved, “China White” (a heroin nickname) personifies medicine as a girl. “My sweet China White / She ain’t here tonight / And love has robbed me blind,” George sings over a blues lilt within the music’s refrain. As soulful because the monitor is, it additionally comes with tragic irony: George’s demise in 1979 was the results of a heroin overdose. (Corey Irwin)
30. (Tie) John Prine, “Sam Stone”
From: John Prine (1971)
“Sam Stone” paints an achingly tragic portrait of a veteran who returned from “the conflict overseas.” But life again dwelling isn’t any paradise. John Prine by no means names the Vietnam War in “Sam Stone,” however the music was written on the flip of the ’70s, so it is protected to imagine which battle he is referring to. Like many vets, the music’s topic turns to heroin to deal with PTSD, melancholy and different situations. “There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes,” Prine sings. “I would liken it to a person who has done prison time. They all speak of how difficult it is to be back on the street, and how difficult it is to accept freedom once you get used to living incarcerated,” Prine, who served within the Army in Germany in the course of the Vietnam War, as soon as informed American Songwriter. (Allison Rapp)
29. Jane’s Addiction, “Three Days”
From: Ritual de lo Habitual (1990)
Xiola Blue was a good friend of Perry Farrell’s who visited Los Angeles to attend her father’s funeral. She was additionally an addict, and the three days she stayed with Jane’s Addiction singer and his girlfriend had been full of medicine and sexual exploration. The occasions of these 72 hours impressed “Three Days.” Released because the second single from Jane’s Addiction’s 1990 album, Ritual de lo Habitual, the monitor turned a fan favourite. Running greater than 10 minutes, the sprawling, psychedelic music ebbs and flows by moments of exuberant power and quiet reflection. Its topic by no means bought to witness the music’s success: Blue died of a heroin overdose in 1987. (Irwin)
28. Megadeth, “Poison Was the Cure”
From: Rust in Peace (1990)
Megadeth was all too acquainted with the perils of heroin habit by 1990, having dropped off the 1988 Monsters of Rock tour so bassist David Ellefson may enter rehab. (Dave Mustaine adopted go well with a 12 months later after driving into an off-duty police automotive whereas intoxicated.) They emerged targeted and ferocious on Rust in Peace, a progressive-thrash masterpiece filled with dizzying time signature modifications and carpal tunnel-inducing solos. Mustaine displays on his habit in “Poison Was the Cure” (a reference to methadone), lamenting heroin’s bygone “warm embrace” and evaluating his mind to “some driftwood in a cesspool.” His rapid-fire lyrics match the livid twin-guitar riffing and evoke the mania that accompanied Mustaine’s darkish evening of the soul. (Bryan Rolli)
27. (Tie) Joni Mitchell, “Cold Blue and Sweet Fire”
From: For the Roses (1971)
Heroin takes on a seductive kind in Joni Mitchell’s “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire.” “Come with me, I know the way,” she says, “It’s down, down, down the dark ladder.” Mitchell had witnessed firsthand how robust the maintain of heroin may very well be; her former boyfriend James Taylor’s drug utilization had reached harmful ranges at first of the ’70s. In 1972, Mitchell described “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire” as “a real paranoid city song — stalking the streets looking for a dealer.” The music’s lyrics replicate the futile feeling of habit: “You can come now or you can come later.” (Rapp)
27. (Tie) Neil Young, “Tonight’s the Night”
From: Tonight’s the Night (1975)
“‘Tonight’s the Night’ is like an OD letter,” Neil Young once explained to Rolling Stone. “The whole thing is about life, dope and death.” The 1975 song, which opened and closed the classic album of the same name, was inspired by Bruce Berry, a roadie for Young who died of a heroin overdose. The lyrics mention Berry by name, chronicling his life and eventual death “out on the mainline.” (Irwin)
25. James Taylor, “Fire and Rain”
From: Sweet Baby James (1970)
James Taylor’s 1970 hit “Fire and Rain” is a story told in three parts. The opening verse deals with the singer-songwriter’s pain of losing a childhood friend to suicide, while the third verse finds him examining his road to fame. In the middle of the song, Taylor addresses his struggles with addiction and depression. He went through a period of heroin use in the late ’60s while living in New York. A stint in rehab got him momentarily clean, but he fell back on bad habits after moving to England. He addresses the helplessness he felt in “Fire and Rain”: “Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus? / You’ve got to help me make a stand / You’ve just got to see me through another day / My body’s aching and my time is at hand / And I won’t make it any other way.” “Fire and Rain” peaked at No. 3. (Irwin)
24. James Brown, “King Heroin”
From: There It Is (1972)
“I wanna discuss to you about one in all our most threatening killers within the nation right this moment,” James Brown says at the top of “King Heroin.” Most of the lyrics were written in poem form by Manny Rosen, who worked at New York’s Stage Delicatessen in New York City. Brown set the words to music with his arranger, David Matthews, and manager Charles Bobbit. Despite the song’s relaxed groove, the lyrics emphasize the violence heroin induces, while affecting the lives of everyone from “heads of state” to “kids at play.” Brown even added a few lines. “This is a revolution of the thoughts,” he says. “Get your thoughts collectively and get away from medicine.” (Rapp)
23. Ministry, “Just One Fix”
From: Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs (1992)
Members of the industrial group Ministry were deep into substance abuse during the making of 1992’s Psalm 69. Frontman Al Jourgensen admitted to Songfacts that the $750,000 they were given to make the album went “up our arms and up our noses.” So there was some personal experience built into “Just One Fix,” which was released as the album’s third single. The heavy-hitting track’s chorus repeats the titular phrase, while sampled audio – including the opening line “never trust a junkie” – is sprinkled throughout. (Irwin)
22. The Velvet Underground & Nico, “I’m Waiting for the Man(*30*)p2″>Included on their 1967 debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico, “I’m Waiting for the Man” details a junkie’s uptown journey to meet his dealer in Harlem. “Twenty-six {dollars} in my hand,” Lou Reed sings, “Feel sick and soiled extra useless than alive.” “I’m Waiting for the Man” was one of several songs initially recorded by the band in New York, but later re-recorded in Los Angeles after the Velvet Underground secured an album deal with Verve Records. Atlantic turned them down because of the prevalent drug references on songs like this one and “Heroin.” (Rapp)
21. Lynyrd Skynyrd, “The Needle and the Spoon”
From: Second Helping (1974)
Second Helping is best remembered as the album that includes “Sweet Home Alabama,” but Lynyrd Skynyrd’s sophomore LP has deeper tracks with much depth, like “Needle and the Spoon.” The title refers to the common way of consuming heroin: using a spoon and lighter to liquefy the drug before injecting it with a needle. Singer Ronnie Van Zant sings about the perils of hardcore drug use with a chilling warning: “Don’t mess with the needle or a spoon / Or any trip to the moon / It’ll take you away.” (Irwin)
20. Skid Row, “Wasted Time”
From: Slave to the Grind (1991)
Following an onslaught of brutality, Skid Row’s Slave to the Grind ends on a heartrending note with “Wasted Time.” Written by singer Sebastian Bach about Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler’s heroin addiction, the six-minute ballad is a masterclass in dynamics, with clean guitar arpeggios and Bach’s tender croon giving way to distorted power chords and anguished cries. “Wasted Time” climaxes in its final minute as Bach screams repeatedly, “I never thought you’d let it get this far, boy” — the most powerful performance of his career and a devastating end to a song rife with sorrow and regret. (Rolli)
19. Nine Inch Nails, “Hurt”
From: The Downward Spiral (1994)
Perhaps no song in history has so accurately described the inner workings of a junkie as “Hurt,” Nine Inch Nails’ 1995 classic. The song opens with a powerful verse: “I hurt myself today / To see if I still feel / I focus on the pain / The only thing that’s real / The needle tears a hole / The old familiar sting / Try to kill it all away / But I remember everything.” From there, the track ventures further into darkness, with Trent Reznor wondering what he’s become. He wrote “Hurt” before he became an addict. “It was in my head. I hadn’t actually lived it,” he explained to Uncut in 2005. “Then later I lived it. I didn’t realize the record was a premonition.” (Irwin)
18. Billy Joel, “Captain Jack”
From: Piano Man (1973)
Billy Joel’s 1973 music “Captain Jack” wasn’t impressed by heroin however somewhat by a supplier he noticed promoting the drug to teenagers at a housing challenge close to his Long Island dwelling. “What’s so horrible about an prosperous younger white teenager’s life that he is bought to shoot heroin?” the singer contemplated in Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography. “It’s really a song about what I consider to be a pathetic loser kind of lifestyle. I’ve been accused of, ‘Oh, this song promotes drug use and masturbation.’ No, no, no. Listen to the song. This guy is a loser.” (Irwin)
17. (Tie) Stone Temple Pilots, “Interstate Love Song”
From: Purple (1994)
Addiction makes a person do many things, including lying to the people who care about them. That’s at the core of “Interstate Love Song,” Stone Temple Pilots’ hit single from their sophomore LP, Purple. Before heading to Atlanta to report the album, singer Scott Weiland promised his fiancee he’d keep off medicine. He didn’t succeed, however in telephone calls along with his future spouse, he’d lie and say every part was nice. “Interstate Love Song” turned probably the most fashionable songs of 1994 and spent 15 weeks at No. 1 on the mainstream rock chart. (Irwin)
17. (Tie) Motley Crue, “Dancing on Glass”
From: Girls, Girls, Girls (1987)
Nikki Sixx was on the finish of his rope in the course of the making of Girls, Girls, Girls, and “Dancing on Glass” particulars his habit spiral with morbid readability. “Valentine’s in London found me in the trash,” Vince Neil wails, a reference to Sixx’s near-fatal heroin expertise in London on Valentine’s Day 1986. The bassist turned blue after being shot up by a supplier, bought smashed with a baseball bat by Hanoi Rocks guitarist Andy McCoy in a failed resuscitation try and was left for useless in a dumpster behind the supplier’s condo. Sixx would fatally overdose once more lower than two years later, main him to lastly get sober and galvanizing “Kickstart My Heart.” It’s a miracle he made it that far. (Rolli)
15. Warren Zevon, “Carmelita”
From: Warren Zevon (1976)
Warren Zevon wrote “Carmelita” when his profession was at a standstill. His first solo album from 1970 had tanked, and he was making a small residing writing songs for different artists and taking part in on periods round Los Angeles. So the character Zevon sings about “sinking down” had loads to do with his actual life on the time. The music’s key line – “I’m all strung out on heroin on the outskirts of town” – wasn’t removed from the reality. Zevon later admitted he dabbled within the drug. Still, the music’s darkish topic – masked in mariachi flavors and a hummable refrain – hasn’t stored it from being a well-liked cowl music with followers and associates like Linda Ronstadt. (Michael Gallucci)
14. (Tie) The Ramones, “Chinese Rock”
From: End of the Century (1980)
After listening to Lou Reed’s “Heroin,” Dee Dee Ramone insisted he may write a greater music concerning the drug. The outcome was “Chinese Rock,” named after a slang time period Ramone and his associates used for the narcotic. For the music’s lyrics, the Ramones’ bassist mined tales from his every day life of scoring heroin and pawning possessions for drug cash. Johnny Ramone reportedly vetoed “Chinese Rock” due to its overt references to drug use. It was first launched by the punk band the Heartbreakers earlier than the Ramones’ model lastly confirmed up on 1980’s End of the Century. (Irwin)
14. (Tie) Alice In Chains, “Would?”
From: Singles Soundtrack (1992)
As the grunge revolution stirred on the prime of the ’90s, lots of the space’s acts turned associates, together with Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood and Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell. After Wood died of a heroin overdose in 1990, Cantrell turned aggravated that everybody targeted on his demise somewhat than his life. “Andy was a hilarious guy, full of life, and it was really sad to lose him,” the guitarist recalled within the liner notes to the 1999 field set Music Bank. “But I always hate people who judge the decisions others make. So it was also directed towards people who pass judgments.” This viewpoint was echoed in “Would?,” sung by Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley, who was additionally caught within the grips of heroin habit and died of an overdose in 2002. (Irwin)
12. Black Sabbath, “Hand of Doom”
From: Paranoid (1970)
Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler wrote “Hand of Doom” after the band performed an American military base in Germany and found that veterans had turned to medicine to deal with the atrocities of the Vietnam War. The music escalates from a haunting dirge to a full-blown steel assault because the music’s protagonist barrels by the phases of habit, from tepid experimentation to lethal desperation. “Hand of Doom” is each a chilling, dynamic epic concerning the horrors of habit and a full-throated denouncement of warfare, making it a becoming companion to the Paranoid LP opener “War Pigs.” (Rolli)
11. The Beatles, “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey”
From: The Beatles (1968)
John Lennon’s heroin habit was obvious to only about everybody concerned within the Beatles circle by the late ’60s. Paul McCartney assumed that was the inspiration behind “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey.” Lennon stated the music was about how no one appeared to love his new associate, Yoko Ono. “Everybody seemed to be paranoid except for us two, who were in the glow of love,” he as soon as famous. “Everything is clear and open when you’re in love.” (Rapp)
10. Jane’s Addiction, “Jane Says”
From: Jane’s Addiction (1987)
Even although Perry Farrell and his bandmates had been often utilizing medicine of their early years, it was another person’s heroin behavior that impressed the group’s signature music. Jane Bainter was an Ivy League-educated girl who lived on the band’s commune-like home in Venice Beach, Calif. Many of Banister’s real-life struggles discovered their means into the lyrics of “Jane Says”: “Jane says, “I’m done with Sergio” – Sergio was the name of Bainter’s dealer; “I’m gonna kick tomorrow” – Bainter often tried and did not give up medicine. While Bainter’s habit impressed the band’s identify and their basic music, her wildness ultimately turned an excessive amount of for even the group. She was kicked out of the home, although years later she reportedly bought clear and bought her life on monitor. (Irwin)
9. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Under the Bridge”
From: Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991)
Unlike a lot of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ upbeat, funked-out songs, the 1992 hit “Under the Bridge” is a somber ballad that originated as a poem. It finds singer Anthony Kiedis reflecting on a rock-bottom second when, within the throes of heroin habit, he went to a seedy downtown Los Angeles location to attain. “I ended up going there with this gang member, and the only way that I was allowed to go under this bridge was for him to tell everybody else that I was getting married to his sister,” he defined to Rolling Stone. “You had to be family to go there. That was one of just hundreds of predicaments that I found myself in, the kind that only drug addiction can bring about.” “Under the Bridge” stays the Red Hot Chili Peppers’s greatest hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spurring the album Blood Sugar Sex Magik to greater than 7 million gross sales within the U.S. (Irwin)
8. David Bowie, “Ashes to Ashes”
From: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
More than a decade after David Bowie launched Major Tom into orbit with 1969’s “Space Oddity,” a message bought beamed again to Ground Control. Bowie would clarify to NME in 1980 that “Ashes to Ashes” served a few functions, together with getting the BBC to play a report with the phrase “junkie” in it. He additionally wished to circle again to the optimism of “Space Oddity.” “I was a very pragmatic and self-opinionated lad that thought I knew all about the great American dream and where it started and where it should stop,” he stated. That dream did not come true for Major Tom: “Strung out in heaven’s high / Hitting an all-time low.” (Rapp)
7. The Black Crowes, “She Talks to Angels”
From: Shake Your Money Maker (1990)
Singer Chris Robinson as soon as stated that “She Talks to Angels” was loosely based mostly on a “goth girl” he knew in Atlanta who was concerned with heroin, however many of the music was written by himself and his brother Rich to characterize so many younger folks the Black Crowes knew arising within the scene. “‘She Talks to Angels’ is a funny song in that so many people resonate with it,” Chris informed Songfacts in 2013. “The dark details like drugs and things like that would be a part of growing up and being in this world, but when I wrote that song I had no idea – I hadn’t done any of those things. I hadn’t lived that – everything was in my imagination.” (Rapp)
5. (Tie) The Velvet Underground & Nico, “Heroin”
From: The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
Most artists in 1967 had been writing about peace and love and different simply digestible ideas. Lou Reed was composing songs about scoring on avenue corners and the frenzy of taking pictures up. “Heroin” would not dance across the topic. “Heroin, it’s my wife and it’s my life,” he sings. “When the smack begins to flow, I really don’t care anymore.” It’s scary, messy and actual. For greater than seven minutes, the Velvet Underground builds a wall of noise that comes crashing down by the monitor’s finish. “Heroin” would not take a stance; it neither condones nor condemns. It simply presents. Brilliantly. (Gallucci)
5. (Tie) Iggy Pop, “Lust for Life”
From: Lust for Life (1977)
Iggy Pop was having fun with a artistic rebirth in 1977, because of David Bowie and a relocation to Germany, the place that 12 months’s two Pop albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life, had been recorded. Both artists had been attempting to get clear of their new dwelling base as they made a few of the greatest albums of their respective careers. Lust for Life‘s title monitor, co-written and produced by Bowie, has turn out to be one in all Pop’s signature songs, rapidly recognized by its opening drums and Pop’s informal learn of traces like “Of course, I’ve had it in my ear before,” a reference to taking pictures heroin. “Lust for Life”‘s topic has been diluted a bit over time from movie and TV use, however the darkish inspiration is obvious. (Gallucci)
4. U2, “Bad”
From: The Unforgettable Fire (1984)
U2’s fourth album, The Unforgettable Fire, marks the primary large change within the band’s lifelong evolution cycle as they labored with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois for the primary time, increasing into sonic landscapes that might outcome of their 1987 masterwork, The Joshua Tree. “Bad” is one in all Fire‘s key tracks, written about heroin habit and, relying on Bono’s various accounts, a good friend who died from an overdose or the drug’s prevalence in Dublin on the time. Either means, the sluggish construct to the road “I’m wide awake, I’m not sleeping” nonetheless gives supposed catharsis. This is the place U2 first confirmed indicators of greatness. (Gallucci)
3. Guns N’ Roses, “Mr. Brownstone”
From: Appetite for Destruction (1987)
Heroin was the monkey on Guns N’ Roses’ again from the band’s early days, ultimately resulting in drummer Steven Adler’s firing and Slash’s briefly deadly overdose. But earlier than they succumbed to their addictions, GNR made heroin sound like a harmful, decadent marvel drug on “Mr. Brownstone.” Even then, the writing was on the wall: “I used to do a little but a little wouldn’t do it so the little got more and more,” Axl Rose croons over serpentine riffs and a slinky groove. When Guns opened for the Rolling Stones in 1989, Rose used the music as a part of his public ultimatum: “Unless certain people in this band get their shit together, these will be the last Guns N’ Roses shows you’ll fucking ever see — ‘cause I’m tired of too many people in this organization dancing with Mr. Goddamn Brownstone.” (Rolli)
2. John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band, “Cold Turkey”
From: Single (1969)
John Lennon’s habit to heroin reached its peak in 1969, as he and Yoko Ono battled the drug. In the center of that 12 months, not lengthy earlier than the Beatles break up up, Lennon bought briefly clear, which he detailed in his 1969 single “Cold Turkey.” As the signs of withdrawal took their toll on him, Lennon wrote about his experiences, which bought so extreme at occasions that he wished for demise. In the final verse, Lennon guarantees to vary: “I’ll be a good boy / Please make me well / I promise you anything / Get me out of this hell.” (Rapp)
1. Neil Young, “The Needle and the Damage Done”
From: Harvest (1972)
Neil Young made a whole album about Crazy Horse bandmate Danny Whitten’s heroin-overdose demise in 1975’s Tonight’s the Night. But a number of years earlier he touched on the topic within the prophetic “The Needle and the Damage Done” from his solely No. 1 LP, Harvest. The music was concerning the common ravaging impact the drug had on folks, significantly rock artists within the post-Woodstock period. “Every junkie’s like a settin’ sun,” Young sings of the inevitable risks. A bit greater than 9 months after the discharge of Harvest, Whitten died, adopted by the demise of Young’s roadie, Bruce Berry, additionally of a heroin overdose and the shared inspiration for Tonight’s the Night. (Gallucci)
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