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The one and only Cab Calloway.
I remember being pretty surprised, on hearing this for the
first time at around age 12, that you could actually sing the word "goddamn" over and over on a record! I didn't think they'd let you do that! "Can't you see, sister morphine, I'm tryin' to score?"
My cover of Lou Reed's glimpse of a day in the life of a New York junkie.
They still haven't taken Peter's advice...
Nice mellow washboard groove and cool lead guitar drifting
like smoke around Jazz's reefer musings. "her mouth was like a grinding mill
her lips were cracked and sore her skin was turning yellow I just couldn't take it no more" "god knows how much I adored her
I just never could afford here..." "Feed your head!" Sing it, Grace!
There can be only one explanation for that horrific
ensemble that Merle's female backup singer is sporting: she was high as a kite when she picked it out. Oh, and Merle flubbing the last line of his song? High. He high. The thing to remember, though, when you hear Merle sing "we don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee, we don't take our trips on LSD" is that Merle isn't IN Muskogee now, IS he? |
I think Lou Reed's "and I guess that I just don't know" line might be the secret inspiration for Kurt Cobain's "oh well whatever never mind" line. And with this song Mo Tucker gave us some
of the best *so bad it's good* drumming to come out of the 60s or any other decade. Ah, the year 1930, when people could actually sing
frankly about sniffing coke! This public domain ditty from the fabulous Memphis Jug Band can be downloaded from the Internet Archive here. I'll refrain from saying anything about James Brown's own
drug use, as that'd just be a cheap shot. "I have to drink a fifth of whisky to get just half as high!"
Sung by my namesake, Buster Bennett. And, little by little, they're doing it!
Typically delightful comic persona on display in this one.
Pure delight. "I'm simply wild about my good cocaine!" Now, be sure to see
page two of Songs About Drugs, which features a myriad of covers of Luke Jordan's tune, in all shapes, sizes and colors! This song is a straight-up, unequivocal endorsement of amphetamine use! "Throw away your Ovaltine and
buy yourself some benzedrine". Nice little piece of psych/garage rock here, about... LSD!
I mean, John Lennon might have just gotten Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds from his kid and all that, but these guys were definitely singing about their lysergic acid diethylamide, no doubt about it. Spanish 60s-era band Los Polares covered the tune, under the title of La Droga. Check that one out, too! |