July 2, 2008
As we noted in Part One of our Top Cocaine Songs of All Time list, North American productivity would roughly equal that of South Korea if the economy comprised a completely coked out workforce.
The link between nose candy and enhanced productivity was also noted by rock stars of the 1970s, who quite correctly observed that there were only so many hours in the day for bedding groupies, sleeping off an all-nighter, and still managing to stand upright for a few hours while in a recording studio (pianists were exempt from this and could stretch out on their benches during long guitar solos).
With hourly rates for such facilities often costing in the neighborhood of a small to mid-sized sedan and producers with extraordinarily busy schedules (in that there were only so many hours in the day to bed the groupies rock stars passed over), it became imperative for these bands to maximize the time spent in a recording studio so that the 45 consecutive minutes of strumming that F chord just right with a conga back beat could be captured for posterity.
With such a hectic schedule, it’s no wonder why many rock stars of the 70s (and right up to the present day), spent their on and off hours planting their kissers in powder. Notably, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith became known as “The Toxic Twins”, not because they were born in Buffalo’s Love Canal area, but because their proboscis suctioning rivaled that of your average centrally installed vacuum. [For those curious about just how bad a performer can stink when he straightens out, click here for a sober Mr Tyler yelping his way like a Russian sled dog, through 'Amazing Grace' at a Detroit church].
Candy Cane became the key that unlocked creativity’s gates, which some musicians found slammed shut as soon as they went straight, most notably, everyone we’ve mentioned here. Now, we bring you, the Top Five Cocaine Songs of All Time — tunes that celebrate the white stuff not referenced on the Weather Channel, and promote the kind of lifestyle that ensured Studio 54 was never late with its rent check.
5) “Casey Jones” and “Truckin”, by the Grateful Dead: These Dead songs casually mention cocaine use as part of the average work day for those in two occupations — a train conductor and a trucker — and we’re hoping this was more fantasy than fiction. Truckers are already not the kind of people that most like to share the road with — their egos being inflated in proportion to their rigs and requiring no further boost from chemicals. Cocaine use might, however, explain, how train conductors can crash something that sets out on a predetermined track.The Dead themselves were no strangers to being intoxicated in transit, having landed themselves on our equally controversial list “The Top 10 Drinking and Driving Songs of All Time“ with their line “She takes the wheel when I’m seein’ double, pays my ticket, when I speed’. The ‘livin’ on reds, vitamin C and cocaine” lifestyle is unlikely to feature prominently in the health and wellness section of your local bookstore alongside “You: On a Diet”, or “Train your Brain to Think like a Thin Person“.
“Driving that train, high on cocaine,
Casey Jones is ready, watch your speed.”
“Livin’ on reds, vitamin C, and cocaine
All a friend can say is ain’t it a shame?”
4) “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’“, “Sister Morphine”, and “Moonlight Mile”, (basically the entire “Sticky Fingers” album) by the Rolling Stones: Pound for pound, or more accurately, ounce for ounce, “Sticky Fingers” is one of the most drug-addled albums ever released, with nearly half of the songs on it in some way referencing drugs either obliquely, or quite explicitly with heroin in Dead Flowers, morphine in Sister Morphine, or singing the praises of a nighttime bump in Moonlight Mile. Sticky Fingers, along with Neil Young’s “Tonight’s the Night” are among the most depressing albums of the 1970s, and together make the Tom Waits song catalog sound like the collected works of the Village People by comparison.
“Yeah, you got satin shoes
Yeah, you got plastic boots
Ya’ll got cocaine eyes
Yeah, you got speed-freak jive”
“Sweet cousin cocaine, lay your cool cool hand on my head
Ah, come on, sister morphine, you better make up my bed”
“When the wind blows and the rain feels cold with a head full of snow, with a head full of snow”
3) Cocaine Blues (traditional, composed by Reverend Gary Davis, as performed by Bob Dylan): There are numerous songs out there that go by the name “Cocaine Blues” or a variation thereof, presumably because there was no shortage of real-life material on which to base such ditties. We’re slotting two of the more prominent in our third and second spots. The first is a “traditional” song, which means that it’s public domain and can therefore be burned, photocopied, recorded, dubbed over, mixed with farm animal sounds, and played over and over again on the street corner to the annoyance of everyone within 100 yards (public noise ordinances notwithstanding) — all with copyright-infringement impunity. The Reverend Gary Davis, who, unlike Brother Horton Heat earlier in the list, actually was an ordained minister, laid down the definitive version of this one, and a young Bob Dylan added it to his repertoire. This version takes us through some of the less pleasant aspects of cocaine use — hence the “blues” part — including:
Any pretense to romance going out the window:
You take Sally, an’ I’ll take Sue,
Ain’t nah difference between the two.
Cocaine all around my brain.
Unpleasant physical effects:
Hey baby, you better come here quick,
This old cocaine ‘bout to make me sick.
Cocaine all around my brain.
And one quite bizarre veterinary notion:
Cocaine’s for horses and it’s not for men,
Doctor said it kill you, but he didn’t say when.
Cocaine all around my brain.
2) Cocaine Blues, (traditional, as performed by Johnny Cash): The second of our public domain songs (go ahead and record this one on YouTube using a butt kazoo and a ukulele for all the record companies care) was first known by the far more ominous sounding name “Transfusion Blues”, but popularized as Cocaine Blues by none other than the Man in Black (especially after Labor Day) Johnny Cash. This was one of the songs that Cash sang at Folsom Prison that no doubt had the guards ruining underwear while wondering whether they would soon have a riot on their hands. This super-charged song tells the story of Willie Lee, a “hack”, which we presume means either a prison guard or cop, as a reporter for a schlock newspaper wouldn’t be as cool, who takes a shot of cocaine and shoots his cheating woman down. He then flees to Mexico, but is apprehended, put before a jury of “12 honest men” and sentenced to “99 years in the Folsom Pen”. By the end the convicted prisoner advises his fellows to stay off the cocaine, not to murder, mind you, but to avoid the cocaine; he seems ok about the murdering your wife part.
The judge he smiled as he picked up his pen
99 years in the Folsom pen
99 years underneath that ground
I can’t forget the day I shot that bad bitch down
Come on you’ve gotta listen unto me
lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be
1) “Cocaine“, by J.J. Cale: Don’t be fooled by Clapton’s fatigued version, this gem penned by J.J. Cale (a man to whom Slow Hand arguably owes his entire career) is in our estimation, the definitive blizzard ditty. Clapton is quoted on Wikipedia as having once said that “Cocaine” is actually an anti-cocaine song. If you study it or look at it with a little bit of thought… from a distance… or as it goes by… it just sounds like a song about cocaine. But in actual fact, it is quite cleverly anti-cocaine.” Being that Clapton didn’t write this song, this opinion is about as valuable as the answer you’d get if you asked the Byrds what they were thinking when they came up with “Mr. Tambourine Man”. Defending his position, Clapton mentions the lyric, “If you wanna get down, down on the ground; cocaine” to demonstrate that the song is anti-coke. He doesn’t mention though that every other lyric in the song could feature in the text of a Colombian drug-runner’s spring/fall catalogue:
If you want to hang out, you’ve got to take her out, cocaine
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie, cocaine
If you got bad news, you want to kick them blues, cocaine
When your day is done and you got to run, cocaine
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie, cocaine
If your thing is gone and you want to ride on, cocaine
Dont forget this fact, you cant get it back, cocaine
She dont lie, she dont lie, she don’t lie, cocaine
Honorable and Dishonorable Mentions:
As always with these lists, there were more contenders than there were places in the Top 10. Here we’ve selected some other songs that could just as easily have made it up with their nostril-thrilling brethren above. Since there are Kid Rock fans out there, and quite possibly a fan of the Libertines might still be drawing air, we will let you determine which of these deserves an honorable or dishonorable badge. Click on the title of the song for the YouTube link:
We run streets like drunks run street lights
We collidin’ with life as we speak
We knee-deep in coke, we keep deep in ice
We flood streets with dope, we keep weed to smoke
What you get and what you see Things that don’t come easily Feeling happy in my vein Icicles within my brain (cocaine)
I got the cane and the O’s, dawg
I’m gangsta like Hennesy and Alizay, thug passion
Ride or die ‘til they kill me and put me in thug’s mansion
No Thing on Me (Cocaine Song) by Curtis Mayfield:
Twinkling twinkling grains
They do all sorts of things
While your inner mind is pleased
Your conscience is only teased…
What a Waster by The Libertines
So tell me, where does all the money go? Where does all the money go?
Straight, straight up her nose
Been fuellin’ up on cocaine and whiskey
Wish I had a good girl to miss me
CLICK HERE FOR PART ONE OF THE TOP 10 COCAINE SONGS OF ALL TIME
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:25 pm
What about White Lines by Grand Master Flash?
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:09 pm
How can they leave out Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” that song was all about cocaine.
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:49 pm
the best cocaine song of all time is ayo for yayo by andre nickatina. these are all songs my dad listened to.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Thanks guys…
According to an interview with James Hetfield, Master of Puppets was inspired by people shooting up at a party he was at..
As for ‘White Lines’, it’s more of a cautionary song, and was a bit too ‘anti drug’ for inclusion here…
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
While that is true, Chris, “White Lines” ought to gain /some/ points just for being an anti-cocaine drug written and performed by guys who were stoned the entire time they were working on the song!
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Not to bash the list or anything. But here’s another one, “Got Me Under Pressure” by ZZ Top, who know a thing or two about cocaine.
Besides the obvious reference in the song, I saw them in concert for the Afterburner tour in like 1985. This is how it started.
Lights come up. The stage is dominated by a huge replica of that Egyptian Pharaoh head w/ sunglasses that was their icon that year, and the entire stage is draped in a white sheet.
The first sound heard was a snorting sound into the microphone, and the whole sheet was sucked up through the nostril of the Pharaoh — revealing the band as they kicked into “Got Me Under Pressure”.
I think was in 10th grade. Totally blew me away!
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
“Headin’ down Scott, Turned up Main,
Lookin’ for that girl that sells cocaine,
Cocaine, runnin’ all round my brain”
Jackson Browne, “Cocaine”
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:33 pm
everybody nose by NERD is a new one but pretty good two
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:39 pm
That’s fuckin’ retarded, Clapton owes his career to JJ Cale? I didn’t know Cale was involved with Cream.
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:43 am
Umm…how in the hell can you leave out “White Lines”??
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:06 am
Thanks everyone for your comments.
Jackson Browne did indeed cover the same version of cocaine that we credit to the Reverend Gary and Dylan here.
As for “Clapton is God” anon, we should remind you that Cale wrote both Cocaine and After Midnight, both huge hits for Clapton. Bob Marley does subterranean somersaults every time Clapton’s version of “I Shot the Sheriff” gets played.
While there is some doubt as to Clapton would have had a career if he didn’t have access to a big catalogue of great old material from which to pilfer, we will admit that he has had his own hits.
However, a fair portion of Clapton’s no. 1 hits that he did write — Layla, Have you Ever Loved a Woman, and the awful karaoke dirge You Look Wonderful Tonight — were all about him celebrating stealing George Harrison’s wife. Should we really applaud a guy for cuckolding quite possibly the nicest guy in the history of rock music?
I think not sir!
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:11 am
And no mention of Cocaine by Dillinger which is far better than any of these efforts.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:01 pm
And what about “A’int Nobody’s Business” by Taj Mahal
“You can walk downtown in your birthday suit
I can see you comin out of the Bank of America with a whole lotta loot
Ain’t nobody’s business but your own
Now you know that they say cocaine is for horses, now that it ain’t for men
The doctor said it’ll kill me but he didn’t say when
Ain’t nobody’s business but your own
(chorus)
champagne don’t make me crazy .
Cocaine don’t make me lazy,
Ain’t nobody’s business but my own.
Candy is dandy and liquor is quicker.
You can drink all the liquor down to Costa Rica.
Ain’t nobody’s business but my own”
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
how about “Cocain (We’re All Going To Hell)” by Strata
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:02 pm
What about snowblind by Black Sabbath It’s a great tune all about cocaine. Also Styx did a song of the name(I personally think they suck but) I believe it was on some SAY NO TO DRUGS media that I had to watch in school even. Also I think Master P had a whole song on how to make coke into crack. You couldve probably made a top 20 list(if not more) of songs that you totally missed.
P.S. Master of Puppets and White Lines, excellent.
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Hey Calico,
Snowblind is on there, in an ‘honorable mention’ at the end of the list.
And you’re quite right that Styx sucks like a $3 dollar hooker.
Master P did not make the cut, much like in his recent workout with the Toronto Raptors.
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Admittedly, Clapton owes his post Cream, post Blind Faith career to Cale…rather than his ‘entire career’.
October 10th, 2008 at 4:00 am
I just wana say the numer one cocaine or drug song of all time would either have to be OD’d in denver by Hank Williams Jr.. or 7 12’s by Michael O’neil band,and if your just wanting o hear the numbr one song in my oppion but he does more of every kind of drug in the bood.. Songs called crazed country Rebel by Hank Williams III.. which is hank willams jr’s real boy and kidrock aint no son of hank!