The 2 Best Odes to Drug Dealers Ever
The Best, “Sugar Man” by Sixto Rodriguez:
Sugar man, won’t you hurry
’cause I’m tired of these scenes.
For a blue coin won’t you bring back
All those colors to my dreams.
Silver magic ships you carry
Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane
Sugar man, met a false friend
On a lonely dusty road
Lost my heart, when i found it
It had turned to dead black coal
Silver magic ships you carry
Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane
Sugar man, you’re the answer
That makes my questions disappear
Sugar man ’cause i’m weary
Of those double games l hear
Sugar man…sugar man…
Sugar man…sugar man…
Sugar man…sugar man…
Sugar man…
Sugar man, won’t you hurry
cause I’m tired of these scenes
For a blue coin won’t you bring back
All those colors to my dreams.
Silver magic ships you carry
Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane
Sugar man met a false friend
On a lonely dusty road
Lost my heart when i found it
It had turned to dead black coal
Silver magic ships you carry
Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane
Sugar man you’re the answer
That makes my questions disappear
2nd Best, “Waiting for My Man” by Velvet Underground
Bonus:
Paolo Nutini’s acoustic cover of Sugar Man:
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I started reading the post, hoping, just hoping that you had overlooked VU’s “Waiting for My Man,” but you got it. Nice pick up.
I saw Sixto Rodriguez play at a record store out here. He was good. I was impressed that he had a horn section.
I know this is an old post, but I can’t believe you left off “Pusher Man” by Curtis Mayfield.
Ah, “Pusher Man” is a great song Chuck, but I deliberately left it off because I was choosing Odes to Dealers, and “Pusher Man’s” not a song being sung to a drug dealer, it’s a song being sung by a drug dealer to his customers.
I’ve thought the Velvet Underground was possibly the most seductively evil rock group of all time.
Why so evil? They make “putting a spike into your vein” and getting that first heroin rush sound so ultimately thrilling that I seriously wonder how many first time main liners they’ve attracted over the years.
Speaking far from personal knowledge, except by knowing some addicted girls in my time, mainlining heroin addiction is incredibly hard to kick, except by substituting methadone. It’s life controlling and life destroying, like crack addiction is, but probably even harder to kick (although maybe a little slower to end up fully hooked.)
Some = 2
so what is a silver magic ship?
and does a blue coin refer to stolen money or selling urself or decency to the dealer?
dougjnn:
ditto the remarks on VU’s romaniticization (word?) of heroin use. same goes for the works of William Burroughs with “Naked Lunch” and “Junky”.
I was never seriously tempted to try heroin, but I kind of wished I could have done it and had similar experiences to Burroughs and Lou Reed, and made it out alive, and been a good writer or musician, and been able to capitalize on my addiction.
That’s the problem with romanticizing these types of things I guess, you only get to see the ones who did it, learned from it, and made it out relatively intact.
Chucks last blog post..Viral Text Trick
Great post. I liked Alphaville’s “Big In Japan,” it wasn’t until recently that I found out it was about a couple lovers wishing they were off Heroin, that they were Big In Japan, far away from home and reality.
Never could figure out what that song was about, but never would have guessed that.
a blue coin, looks like the man was truly before his time.
http://www.urbandictionary.com.....lue%20coin
Strangely apt.