Heroin (song)
| "Heroin" | |
|---|---|
| Song by The Velvet Underground from the album The Velvet Underground & Nico | |
| Released | March 1967 |
| Recorded | May 1966 at T.T.G. Studios in Hollywood, California |
| Genre | Avant-garde, protopunk, experimental rock, psychedelic rock, art rock |
| Length | 7:12 |
| Label | Verve Records |
| Writer | Lou Reed |
| Composer | Lou Reed |
| Producer | Andy Warhol |
| Cover versions | |
| The Velvet Underground & Nico track listing | |
"Heroin" is a song by The Velvet Underground, released on their 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. Written by Lou Reed in 1964, the song, which overtly depicts heroin use and abuse, is one of the band's most celebrated compositions. Critic Mark Deming writes, "While 'Heroin' hardly endorses drug use, it doesn't clearly condemn it, either, which made it all the more troubling in the eyes of many listeners".[1]
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked it #455 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
Contents |
Recording [edit]
"Heroin" was among a three-song set to be re-recorded at T.T.G. Studios, Hollywood before being included on the final release of The Velvet Underground & Nico (along with "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "Venus in Furs"). This recording of the song would be the album's second longest at 7 minutes and 12 seconds, being eclipsed only by "European Son" by about 30 seconds.
"Heroin" begins slowly with Reed's quiet, melodic guitar and hypnotic drum patterns by Maureen Tucker, soon joined by John Cale's droning electric viola and Sterling Morrison's steady rhythm guitar. The tempo increases gradually, mimicking the high the narrator receives from the drug, until a frantic crescendo is reached, punctuated by Cale's shrieking viola and the more punctuated guitar strumming of Reed and Morrison. Tucker's drumming becomes hurried and louder. The song then slows to the original tempo, and repeats the same pattern before ending.
The song is based on D♭ and a G♭ major chords. Like "Sister Ray", it features no bass guitar; Reed and Morrison use chords and arpeggios to create the song's trademark sound. Rolling Stone said "It doesn't take much to make a great song," alluding to the song's use of merely two chords.
Tucker actually got lost during the recording and stopped drumming for several seconds at the 6:17 mark, before picking up the beat again. This coincidental pause came at a dramatic shift in the song, however, and her "mistake" remains an essential element of the song.[original research?]
Alternative versions [edit]
Ludlow Street Loft, July 1965 [edit]
The earliest recorded version of "Heroin" was with Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison and John Cale at the band's Ludlow Street loft in July 1965. Unlike songs such as "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "Venus in Furs" which sound drastically different from their corresponding 1966 recordings on The Velvet Underground & Nico, the '65 version of "Heroin" is nearly identical to the album version in structure. On the recording, Reed performs the song on an acoustic guitar. This version of the song can be found on the 1995 compilation album, Peel Slowly and See.
Scepter Studios, April 1966 [edit]
The original take of "Heroin" that was intended for release on The Velvet Underground & Nico was at Scepter Studios in New York City, April 1966. This version of the song features slightly different lyrics and a more contained, less chaotic performance. Overall, the tempo of the song is at a steadier, quicker pace. It is about a minute shorter.
One notable difference in the lyrics is Lou Reed's opening — he sings "I know just where I'm going" rather than "I don't know just where I'm going" as on the final album recording. Reed was known to do this during subsequent performances of the song as well.[2]
The Velvet Underground and drugs [edit]
"Heroin", (along with songs like "I'm Waiting for the Man" which dealt with similar subject matter), tied the Velvet Underground with drug use in the media. Some critics declared the band were glorifying the use of drugs such as heroin.[3] However, members of the band (Reed, in particular) frequently denied any claims that the song was advocating use of the drug. Reed's lyrics, such as they are on the majority of The Velvet Underground & Nico, were more meant to focus on providing an objective description of the topic without taking a moral stance.[1][4] Critics were not the only ones who misunderstood the song's neutral tone; fans would sometimes approach the band members after a live performance and tell them they "shot up to 'Heroin'",[5] a phenomenon that deeply disturbed Reed. As a result, Reed was somewhat hesitant to play the song with the band through much of the band's later career.[3]
Cover versions [edit]
- The song has been covered by several artists, including Mazzy Star, Human Drama, Iggy Pop, Echo & the Bunnymen, Roky Erickson,[6] Billy Idol and Third Eye Blind.
- Lou Reed later performed "Heroin" live in his glam rock style, featuring the guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner. The resulting thirteen minute track is included on his live album Rock 'n' Roll Animal, released in 1974.
- Brian Bell and Patrick Wilson from Weezer covered the song.
- Električni Orgazam's lead vocalist, Srđan Gojković, recorded a cover version of the song for an art exhibition of Andy Warhol's works at the Modern Arts Museum in Zagreb, released in 2008 on his compilation Muzika za film, TV i muzej
- Classical composer David Lang arranged the song for voice and cello
References in popular culture [edit]
- Denis Johnson's short story collection Jesus' Son, and the film based on it took its title from the lyrics of this song.
- In an interview on the Jonathan Richman DVD, Take Me To The Plaza, he recounts trading a record by The Fugs for The Velvet Underground & Nico after hearing this song for the first time.
- The song has featured in several movies, including The Doors and Killing Them Softly. It has also appeared in television shows, such as Misfits and Brotherhood.
- According to Mick Jagger, the Beggar's Banquet track "Stray Cat Blues" by The Rolling Stones was inspired by "Heroin", Jagger going as far as to say that the whole sound of "Stray Cat Blues" was lifted from "Heroin". The intros of both songs bear a distinct resemblance.[citation needed]
- In Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting, the central character Mark Renton describes playing the "Rock 'n' Roll Animal" version of 'Heroin' instead of the original "The Velvet Underground & Nico" as 'breaking the junkie's golden rule'.
- Jeff Ott of Fifteen's acoustic song also entitled "Heroin" contains the line "I feel like a man when I stick the spike into my vein."
- Martin Amis's first novel The Rachel Papers features a scene in which the song is played in the bedroom of the novel's protagonist, Charles Highway, who calls it 'the most violent and tuneless of all [his] American LPs'.
References [edit]
- ^ a b "Heroin" at Allmusic
- ^ Cannon, Geoffrey (March 1971). "The Insects of Someone Else's Thoughts". Zigzag (18).
- ^ a b Heylin, Clinton, ed. (2005). All Yesterday's Parties: The Velvet Underground in Print 1966–1971 (first ed.). United States: De Capo Press. p. / 138. ISBN 0-306-81477-3.
- ^ Harvard, Joe (2007) [2004]. The Velvet Underground & Nico. 33⅓. New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8264-1550-4.
- ^ Bangs, Lester (May 1971). "Dead Lie The Velvets, Underground". Creem 3 (2). "I meant those songs to sort of exorcise the darkness, or the self-destructive element in me, and hoped other people would take them the same way. But when I saw how people were responding to them it was disturbing. Because like people would come up and say, 'I shot up to "Heroin,'" things like that. For a while, I was even thinking that some of my songs might have contributed formatively to the consciousness of all these addictions and things going down with the kids today. But I don't think that anymore; it's really too awful a thing to consider. (Lou Reed)"
- ^ "Full Albums: The Velvet Underground & Nico » Cover Me". Covermesongs.com. Retrieved 2012-01-10.
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