Looking Back At Some Classics

[SteveO]

A seminal song from a seminal classic album....love it !

#455 - Velvet Underground - Heroin - 1967

running recap for me - 3's=24, 2's=16, 1's=6
this one - **
from the album: Velvet Underground & Nico
Written by Lou Reed
Produced by Andy Warhol, Tom Wilson
Chart action: non-single

the players:
John Cale – electric viola
Sterling Morrison – guitar
Lou Reed – vocals, guitar
Maureen Tucker – drums

Can't let my love of VU interfere with my like of this song. Subject matter would have kept this from ever
being a single. From their debut album, and one of their most well known songs. The song neither approves
of or condems the use of the drug, of which the moralists demanded the latter. Reed would later express
some regret, when fans would tell him they shot up while listening to the song. Never the moralist
himself, he did not mean for the song to condone the use of heroin.

[video=youtube;nJNMnBhf-Ds]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJNMnBhf-Ds[/video]

Lyrics

I don't know just where I'm going
But I'm gonna try for the kingdom, if I can
'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man
When I put a spike into my vein
And I'll tell ya, things aren't quite the same
When I'm rushing on my run
And I feel just like Jesus' son
And I guess that I just don't know
And I guess that I just don't know

I have made the big decision
I'm gonna try to nullify my life
'Cause when the blood begins to flow
When it shoots up the dropper's neck
When I'm closing in on death
And you can't help me not, you guys
And all you sweet girls with all your sweet talk
You can all go take a walk
And I guess that I just don't know
And I guess that I just don't know

I wish that I was born a thousand years ago
I wish that I'd sailed the darkened seas
On a great big clipper ship
Going from this land here to that
Put on a sailor's suit and cap
Away from the big city
Where a man can not be free
Of all of the evils of this town
And of himself, and those around
Oh, and I guess that I just don't know
Oh, and I guess that I just don't know

Heroin, be the death of me
Heroin, it's my wife and it's my life
Because a mainer to my vein
Leads to a center in my head
And then I'm better off than dead
Because when the smack begins to flow
I really don't care anymore
About all the Jim-Jim's in this town
And all the politicians makin' crazy sounds
And everybody puttin' everybody else down
And all the dead bodies piled up in mounds

'Cause when the smack begins to flow
Then I really don't care anymore
Ah, when the heroin is in my blood
And that blood is in my head
And thank God that I'm as good as dead
And thank your God that I'm not aware
And thank God that I just don't care
And I guess I just don't know
And I guess I just don't know