I've Been Down

I think that this song is about drugs. This is not just because this song is on <i>The Basketball Diaries</i> soundtrack. I just really think that. I think it's about how drugs make you feel ("my head weighs neighty pounds"), but also about what is going on around the "druggie" (having no wife; feeling love from no one).

"I tumble into space, tryin to stop the fall"

He blindly tumbles into a world of drugs

"My body ripped and tore, I could have floated in space"

Drugs damaged his body, but they made him feel weightless and carefree

"I stumble 'round my home, I am on the outside"

The drug make him stumble alone around his house with little control over his actions, and on the outside because he is outcast from his friends because of his problems

"My legs and arms are lead, feeling love from no one"

His limbs seem to weigh a ton from the effects of the drugs. He feels love from no one cos he is depressed and he doesn't see his old friends any more or they dont want to see him cos of his drug problem

"My head weighs ninety-pounds and I've been down"

Again his head feeling the effects of the drugs and he's been down, he's seen a dark side of life and he's been really depressed

"My friends are aliens"

He feels alienated from his friends.

"Well now I've got no wife"

Maybe metaphorical, or maybe meaning literally that his spouse left him because of his drug use

"Cut a lizard's tail, it grows back to life"

I've always taken this as being the start of him giving up, perhaps because his wife left him and he realise

"I killed some sleepless nights,"

Perhaps this means he took drugs cos he couldn't sleep. Or maybe it just means he killed some sleepless nights thinking bout all his mistakes. Notice it moves into the past tense, reflecting my previous comment

"my heart's torn to pieces" He has a broken heart because he's lost his partner and his friends and he's lonely and depressed cos of what drugs have done to him

lol i forgot to add at the beginning, these are my thoughts and opinions, not fact^

ahh made so many errors in the above^ the lizards tale bit i think of as him realising that he must change and so even though he's been damaged (his 'tail' has been 'cut' off) he's gonna get through and once again grow to become a better man (his 'tail' 'grows back to life')

This isn't a Red Hot Chili Peppers song. It may well contain Flea on bass, but if i were to go by that logic i could just as well say that several Mars Volta songs and You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette could be included in this section.

I also think it might be a cover because I would surely know about it if it was studio.