spot the missing song...
So the obvious eponymous stuff on drugs
(but not necessarily War and Free Love) would include:-
JJ Cale - Cocaine - sort of a love affair with drugs
Lou Reed - Heroin (was the heroin chic song)
The Stones - Sister Morphine - is pretty distressing wake up call...
The Beatles - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (ok, probably has some free love in - not sue about war)
Note John Martyn's Solid Air
is about drugs (actually about the death from an overdose by
Nick Drake)....has extremely cool mix of acoustic guitar, awesoem double bass playin
and rather clver singing (try it - you really have to take care with breathing...
The quintessential war/drugs song (but lyrics might not quite add up) is
Voodoo Chile, by Jimi Hendrix -
it is THE soundtrack to vietnam (more so than the overplayed "machine gun)
and while sounding tangential, is probably core to any narrative
of this topic...of course, was revolutionary use of electric guitar in several ways
Stevie Ray Vaughan does a great cover
Of course, the sound track to free love in Haight/Ashbury back in the day was
The Grateful Dead's Trucking....is possibly interesting in its boringness (I don't rate it
as a Dead song at all - I much prefer songs like Box of Rain (a kylie fave)
and also Sugar Magnolia (two drummers) -
or Scarlet Begonias which has to have one of the most drugged out love lyrics ever
"The Sky was yellow and the sun was blue,
the wind in the willows played tea for two"
yikes - what were they smokin?
here's the Talking heads doing a stonking live version of Drugs
i'm trying to track it down, but a really cool spoof
of all of the above was a liverpool band called
ALberto y los trios paranoias, who did a magnificent pomp drug song called
Mandrax Sunset Variations part III - here's there cover of Anarchy in the UK
Kevin Ayers did a nice song called
Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes
also his song "may i"
is really nice free lovish
then frank zappa did stinkfoot, which I claim is druggy etc
(check out the vibraphones and cool animation at the end)
extremely musically accomplished:)
Kaleidescope (on their fabulous "When Scopes Collide" album
did a lot of stuff, but I think Elevator Man is probably relevant here:-
is very cool use of weird drums and strange harmonium
Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl is def. a free love song
was interesting coz of the added "grunge" guitar - bit of a contrast to his acoustic stuff&CSNY
here's a video/chat about a Toureg band from Mali who write songs of resistence:-
I love Fatou from Mali too - she was playin & dancin in london a couple of weeks back but I missed it rats!
not sure about war/drugs/love angle - say more if you want more details or different stuff altogether
