Essence

Wow, no comments so far?! I LOVE this song - so unadulterated and emotional. The lyrics are pretty basic but the emotion in her voice (especially the way she says, "Baby, sweet baby" makes the listener feel what she feels - utter need for this other person. Love it. Everyone deserves to feel this desperate for someone, and also everyone should feel this desired by someone!

I also love this song -- the way it puts the songwriter's desire right out there, plain as day -- "the utter need" as musicISmytruelove put it. Few songwriters are as bold as Lucinda Williams and able to write a line such as "Please come find me and help me, get fucked up." I recently read somewhere that Lucinda Williams had a bad heroin addiction for several years. If so, her drug use clearly informs the lyrics, as the words she uses to describe her total dependency on who she desires seem to be a perfect description of drug use. In fact, one could almost argue that the song is about loving drugs.

Great interpretation openroad. I always thought this song was about love addiction, using drugs as a metaphore, but you're right that it could be the other way around.

Man, this song is as raw as they come. So much need and hunger for this lover expressed in its total earthiness. The essence is clearly the lover's cum, no two ways about it. And the narrator is so in need of it, that she waits for him wherever he goes. Even hanging outside his house, following him to his favorite bar, sitting in her car, so damn needy.

But yeah, "Shoot your love into my veins" and "Even though you flirt with death".... these lines suggest a different kind of neediness. So it's easy to transpose a hooker/pimp relationship onto this. Real easy, in fact.

What makes this song work is that the meaning of that essence swims from one to the other, like Roxy Music's "Love is the Drug." Love can have a neutralizing narcotic effect that causes some to debase themselves for it.

Great interpretation openroad. I always thought this song was about love addiction, using drugs as a metaphore, but you're right that it could be the other way around.

Great song from a great songwriter.I do not believe that this song is about drugs,at least not the drugs that we all tend to think of first,the literal ones. This song is about the attraction one can have for another.She is comparing her longing for him to the longing that a junkie has for his heroin,or whatever drug of choice.

In just a few words Lucinda captures the feeling of fear and the thrill of being at your most vulnerable and past caring. Deliriously beautiful song.

Never let anyone get control of you this way. I actually hope it is about drugs.