Heroin Lyrics
As Lou has said, the song is about heroin. Not for it, not against it, just about it. That's only one part of its brilliance (very few, if any, songwriters have had the courage to deal so head-on with drugs since); it's also brilliant musically, with everything so primal, from the simple guitars raving up and down, the screeching viola and perhaps most importantly, Moe's pounding drums. Just beautiful!
Ever notice how on the first album, most of the instrumentation seem to try to metaphorically symbolize the theme/subject of the song? With heroin, with its the flow from the rush and the nod, slowly building up, and increasingly strung out (care of cale's screeching viola). I'm Waiting for the Man sounds angular and repetitive and full of motion, just like the city it describes. Venus in Furs sounds like some viking slave ship beat, perfect for its account depravity in antiquity. In There She Goes Again, at the end of the verse, when lou says, "you'd better hit her", the band answers back with a sharp "bum bum bum bum" in agreement. And then my all time favorite, The Black Angel's Death Song, has Cale's viola providing that eerie, ghostly shriek in perfect counterpoint to Reed's rambling lyrics about death and choice and fate. The whole album is completely sublime. If you yearn to start a band whose ideals are originality and expression, this album is almost a prerequisite.
I don't know why, but to me this is a beautiful song. It almost makes me cry at times. The lyrics are kind of meaningful too. I'd say Lou isn't very fond of heroin.
I love Lou Reed because he doesn't say something is good or bad he just goes, hey here it is, you decide. I think he is the most truthful song writer I've ever heard
When I heard this song as a teenager I promised myself that I never ever would take drugs. The lyrics scared me. There was nothing romatic about taking heroin. It was just a sentence to slavery and death. I held that promise.
I like how the song progresses. It becomes more disorderly until it snaps. The style parallels a heroin trip.
I really don't care anymore About all the Jim-Jim's in this town And all the politicians makin' crazy sounds And everybody puttin' everybody else down And all the dead bodies piled up in mounds
This song is about escape. Kind of like, "look what you guys made me do." The world is in turmoil and is crazy, but he finds his own craze and peace within himself and his drug.
This song is a part of me. I don't know what else to say, I think it's gonna follow me for the rest of my life, and frankly, I don't mind. It's just so soothing, relaxing, depressing, comforting, stressing, everything... all at once. I love it.
The lyrics are amazing but in my opinion the violin at the end says it all. it's a complete chaotic train wreck on the surface but underneath, it has this stange beauty, like the lyrics are saying it's like he's happy to be this wrecked and disoriented, and he does'nt care. and I think that those 30 seconds of violent screeching are a metaphor for his view of heroin.
What a powerful existential song about the nature of addiction. The drug takes over his entire life, it becomes his reason for living. The music really adds to the personal emptiness, the sadness that no one who hasn't been there can ever express, the desperate feeling you can never escape - feelings of weakness and self-doubt, the desire for meaning or at least significance in a meaningless world.