Songs!
This week’s prompt: “A song about drugs or alcohol”. This one could go anywhere from very silly to very serious indeed; I’ll start things off on the lighter side. It may be hard to believe, but this one was written and first performed by Neil Diamond in 1967, presumably in his usual style.1 It was fifteen years later that UB40 turned it into this lighthearted bit of reggae.
UB40 - Red Red Wine (Official Video)
Once again, in your responses use a URL like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXctarOxRz8
Youtube’s suggested sharing format
https://youtu.be/KXctarOxRz8
doesn’t appear to work in comments. Also, put the URL on a line by itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPpGp_J3z2AReport
Unrelated to my choice, but its pretty incredible that I can check my phone and see that my eldest kid is currently hiking somewhere on Iveragh Peninsula in Southwest Ireland.Report
Brother, my cup is empty…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR8J36fIa1wReport
Although this tends to be a genre I avoid, there’s no denying Uncle Tupelo’s “I Got Drunk”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z17cGZXsUA0Report
God, Uncle Tupelo was good. They also did my favorite version of Moonshiner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppiol9oetOkReport
A classic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrUpF6atHEo
Revisited:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MNdOCQYOL8Report
a fun one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4rY52SWklcReport
My Dad used to sing that, mostly to irritate my Mom.Report
There’s also this version, which gets extra credit for sheer weirdness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNrQQNwZeggReport
The Muppets drink all kinds of stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EoOVvGV_aQReport
and a sad one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZbN_nmxAGkReport
I mean…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISmgOrhELXsReport
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3eN6WvERaMReport
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvC638DINIQReport
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI3yXg-sX5cReport
I prefer this version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4hGSR5njZEReport
When I was a kid, Red Red Wine was used as an example of a song glorifying self-harm. It wasn’t good that kids were listening to it.
Now that I am old, it is a song for paper towel commercials.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_f5Q7OqRIwReport
The first time I heard Carnivale Cruises use Lust for Life by Iggy Pop I couldn’t believe it. But then I noticed how Bolwderized it was and I was sad.Report
Trainspotting came out 7 years prior (which gave me my first time hearing the song).Report
And now I’ve been thinking about Trainspotting.
Report
Always a classic
https://youtu.be/qYS732zyYfU
[Mike: Ten points from Gryffindor for not following directions]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYS732zyYfU&feature=youtu.beReport
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk8vs1pKW5AReport
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inqL54q7aD4Report
The same week I bought this album, my boss and I were driving around and I said “Listen to this song!” and we listened and liked the song and he said “what’s the song about?” and we theorized… is it about a girlfriend who broke up? A girlfriend who is together but distant? A girl that he wishes were his girlfriend but isn’t? Maybe will never, ever be?
We looked it up when we got back to the office.
It’s about drugs.Report
Lord, I can smell the cigarette smoke in the rural dive bar my parents used to drag me to with them when I hear this song…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFsii2OOgp8Report
This too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgsQ97PEpOoReport
Not, Lennon insisted, a drug song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naoknj1ebqIReport
You beat me to it.Report
I’ve got a rough draft of an essay talking about the allure of self-destruction via drink or drugs and talking about songs that glorify such things because of the “authenticity” of destroying oneself compared to the Babbitry of showing up to a job week-in-week-out.
But I couldn’t figure out a way to write it ethically.
Anyway, here’s the song that I would have linked to at the top of the essay:
Report
I would really like to read that though.Report
Eh. I’ve given short speeches on smoking that made some of my friends who had quit smoking say something to the effect of “man, now I want a cigarette” and I don’t want anybody who might say that about self-destructive behavior to say “yeah, man, I miss self-destruction!”
That song is a really good song, though.Report
Bunch of drug songs in this. I’ll pick one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTss9K0LXJ0Report
Seems like the morning crowd was about drinking, but by afternoon, the OT crowd turned more to harder stuff. For drugs . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa3ZQKOoqpoReport
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQIvr2VpuRE
The best purveyor of country music today.Report
The UB40 version of “Red, Red Wine” was, for some reason, popular among my classmates in elementary school, although it had already been out for some years at that point. I never cared much for it. It wasn’t until five or so years ago that I first heard the Neil Diamond original and realized that it was actually a pretty good song.Report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUt-hGSm2e0
Easy.Report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUt-hGSm2e0
Easy.Report
It’s not really ‘about’ drugs and alcohol as much as it is a snide remark on lumpenprole drinking culture, but this was the anthem of an age
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGcReport
(also, if you’re tired of watching nazis on youtube, I discovered this guy who has a great series on one hit wonders. (some of which – many of which, actually technically aren’t))
(for real, I don’t quite understand how people get nazis in their youtube feed. I don’t, and I’ve watched some weird stuff from time to time)Report
Sometimes I get Richard Wagner.Report
A little crude, but I love the riff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7TWLxCIgwEReport
It also works in this style:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DElRqo8u1vQReport
I’d forgotten to post They Might Be Giants’ “Drink!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZteVgYLiavkReport