Twelve Steps to Hell

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Are there any songs about GIVING UP drugs/booze that aren't nauseating swill? From Stevie Ray Vaughan's therapeutic drivel to the 'No No Song' (which is at least funny in light of Mr Starkey's subsequent booze immersion) to Xtian music, this is probably the worst genre of music ever. (Straight-edge bands don't count, because there's usually no evidence the songwriters indulged in the first place.) This is NOT a 'should Bowie/Reed get back on the coke/speed etc.' question - just why can't anybody who stops write anything semi-listenable about the experience?

Actually, Warren Zevon("Detox Mansions","My Shit's Fucked Up") and Alice Cooper("How You Gonna See Me Now") did alright, I suppose.

― tarden, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

"Cold Turkey" by John Lennon springs to mind.

― alex in nyc, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

You're right about "Cold Turkey", whoops, forgot about that one. Still though, how long was Lennon addicted to smack, about three weeks or something? He was always a bit of a drama queen.

― tarden, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

How about the collected works of Spiritualized? Especially "Ladies & Gentlemen..."

OK, some of that is pretty close to progwank swill, (hey! I'm an obsessive fan! I can say these things objectively!) but often, the songs about his heartfelt rending feelings about the drugs are more interesting than the songs about the heartfelt rending feelings about the girl.

― masonic boom, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

I always thought that Under The Bottle from The Blue Mask, and The Power of Positive Drinking from Growing Up In Public, both by Reed, were great songs about getting over the dark demon drink. Also The Last Shot, from Legendary Hearts. I think the three album might be the "sobering up but still rocking" trilogy which he then went and ruined with his Crap Trilogy starting with Mistrial.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

"Your Own Back Yard" by Dion is the best quitting-dope song i can think of tonight.
"Before they make me run" by the Rolling Stones is good too.

― duane zarakov, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

I second Duane on "Your Own Back Yard" - Dion just says plainly and simply what going off heroin did for him. I only know Mott The Hoople's version, unfortunately, but man is it gorgeous. Of course Mott were all probably coked up to the eyeballs when they did it, but still.

― Patrick, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

WHite Lines? IS that about trying to quit or just about coke? THere's that Cure song baout quitting alcohol on WIsh but I guess its kind of swill about swilling

― Mike Hanley, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

The No No Song is fantastic especially for the bit where he just makes a sniffing sound instead of actually saying what he's doing. It's possibly the most camp song ever written.

― Ally, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

For years, I only knew the French version of "The No No Song" (by Robert Demontigny, I think) and I had no idea it was a cover - I just about fell on my ass laughing when I found out 2 or 3 years ago that the song originated with Ringo.

― Patrick, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Magnetic Fields, 'Lonely Highway': 'I nearly killed you with my drinking'. Blondie, 'Here's Looking At You': 'Sure I'll stop drinking'.

― the pinefox, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

There must be a Pogues song or nine.

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

That would assume that any of the Pogues ever stopped drinking.

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Lots of people have done good records about trying to come off drugs... Spacemen 3, The Velvets, Nick Cave, Suicide. Not sure if there's been any decent stuff about actually coming off them.

― Johnathan, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Yeah that's why that Dion song is so great, he's actually done it & he's happy. Like you say, most songs about that stuff have a kind of anti-drugs, i-guess-we-better-stop-doing-this-sometime-soon thing in 'em somewhere. I guess Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" is about resolving to give up drugs...

― duane zarakov, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

'Minesweepers' - "I never learned that my hands not steady" esp. But it's probably a lot more of a song.

― youn, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Moxy Fruvous (who are usually my aesthethic eqivalent of gnawing on tinfoil) actually have one song I like in "The Drinking Song" which is actually an anti-drinking song. Sort of. I think. ? Aw heck.

― Kim, Friday, 25 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

George Jones - "A man can be a drunk sometimes, but a drunk can't be a man." He must've known what he was on about, barring the times he was doing drunken 360s on his lawn tractor.

― tarden, Saturday, 26 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

I also think that the song 'Your Own Backyard' is really honest and therefore - commendable? Enjoyable. I don't even know whether that guy did other good music or not, so it makes it YET MORE POIGNANT that this might be the highlight (in terms of 'greatness', not sales) of his career - in his case, quitting drugs really did lead to new heights. Because I think the aim of this question is to figure out - do you really need the drugs to 'create'? (Answer - 'Come on man, get out of that groove, you don't need the junk to make you move' - from an incompetent rap by the peculiar and clever New Zealand band 'The Axemen.')

― Maryann, Sunday, 27 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Let me direct you to Royal Trux (yes of course ;): 3rd album and 'Cats & Dogs'. Very good albums dealing with coming off drugs and somehow retain that drifting, shimmering, nightmare/dreamlike feeling. Also good 'Exit the Dragon' by Urge Overkill.

― Omar, Monday, 28 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Blur - Coffee & TV

― Nik, Monday, 28 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Youn, I think the line is actually "I never learned but my hand's not steady", but I could be wrong. And I think the song itself is possibly more about growing up and away from things than giving things up, but I'm probably off the mark again. Mr B?

― Ally C, Tuesday, 29 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Yes, it's probably a lot more of a song. I'll shy away from lyrical exegesis. Sorry about the missing punctuation and 'that' instead of 'but', which says something different.

Mr. B doesn't seem to care about lyrics anymore. But I think the time is ripe for a counterrevolution.

That song is slowly killing me. It's worse than the bottle.

― youn, Tuesday, 29 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Grant Hart, he's strangely reflective about his problems on the road to recovery, even if he was off, it sounded like he missed it. And Nick Cave sounds as if he's going through it on 'From Her to Eternity'; de-tox catharsis, psychotic episodes...

― K-reg, Tuesday, 29 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Same could be said of just about every Nick Cave record.

― Johnathan, Tuesday, 29 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

Slowly killing? Well, it was slow in coming. It had an early life (3 months early) on the piano as an imaginary song for ld beghtol. I think it would have to be even slower for 'ld' to sing it, though. And that would be slow. Slow going.

Actually Youn is right - we (: some of us) shouldn't go round dismissing 'lyrical content' like we do. If I've said it once I've said it a million times: the canonical intervention on this was made by Troussé and Lumsden, Poetry Society publications, Autumn 1999.

― the pinefox, Wednesday, 30 May 2001 00:00 (twenty-five years ago)

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