SURPRISINGLY, Damon Albarn used to be a smackhead. You’d never have guessed would you? More than that, he said that heroin “completely changed” him as a musician and he’s written about being on the brown in a new song on his ‘Everyday Robots’ LP.
“In those… lines I said everything about it that I wanted to. You know, ‘My ship across…’ it has some poetry to it. I’m happy I found that poetry. I can move forward not without all the nudge nudge, wink wink innuendo I’ve had in the background for years. It was a long time ago,” he said.
He’s now off the smack though, which is a relief.
Naturally, there’s a bazillion songs about drugs in the pantheon of popular music… but which are the best? These lists always include ‘Heroin’ by the Velvet Underground, but we’re not going to bother because a) It isn’t all that b) You’re probably a bit sick of it appearing in Lists Of Drug Songs.
So here we go, with some off-kilter songs influenced by people getting out of their boxes (see if you can guess which drug applies to which song).
Harry ‘The Hipster’ Gibson – ‘Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs Murphy’s Ovaltine?’
Gravediggas – ‘Defective Trip (Trippin’)’
Cab Calloway – ‘Reefer Man’
Fred Neil – ‘Sweet Cocaine’
Three 6 Mafia – ‘Sippin’ On Some Syrup’
Rick James – ‘Mary Jane’
The Other Half – ‘Mr Pharmacist’
Flamin’ Groovies – ‘Slow Death’
Ella Fitzgerald/Chick Webb – ‘Wacky Dust’
Method Man – ‘Tical’
Snoop & Pharrell – ‘Lets Get Blown’
Brewer & Shipley – ‘One Toke Over The Line’
Talking Heads ‘And She Was’
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