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The Needle And The Damage Done Lyrics
I caught you knockin' at my cellar door
I love you, baby, can I have some more
Ooh, ooh, the damage done.
I hit the city and I lost my band
I watched the needle take another man
Gone, gone, the damage done.
I sing the song because I love the man
I know that some of you don't understand
Milk-blood to keep from running out.
I've seen the needle and the damage done
A little part of it in everyone
But every junkie's like a settin' sun.
I love you, baby, can I have some more
Ooh, ooh, the damage done.
I watched the needle take another man
Gone, gone, the damage done.
I know that some of you don't understand
Milk-blood to keep from running out.
A little part of it in everyone
But every junkie's like a settin' sun.
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"Milk blood to keep from running out" Definite double meaning 1) Re-injecting blood to get high 2) Using/ stealing from family members to get dope money
Nah, you put milk in the needle to keep the blood from running out when you jab yourself with the stuff.
Nah, you put milk in the needle to keep the blood from running out when you jab yourself with the stuff.
Supposedly, as the story goes, one of the members of Crazy Horse (whose name escapes me at the moment) got addicted to heroin. So Young kicked him out of the band, gave him a plane ticket and $50 to go to LA, enter rehab and clean himself up. Instead, he spent the money on more heroin and ended up Oding. Very sad.
And the "milk blood" line is about how junkies draw their own blood and re-inject it to get a mild high.
If you like this song, you'll like the whole album Tonights The Night - another band member ODed, so everyone in Crazy Horse just got piss drunk and recorded the whole album in pretty much one take. All kinds of slurred words, missed tempos and stuff - but it's absolutely amazing nonetheless.
Your interpretation of "milk blood" is absolutely right. When my best friend and I were shooting year ago, he loved to draw out just enough blood from me to create a rose in the syringe, then re-inject it. That guaranteed he hit a vein and did give me a great high before I started to nod on and off.
Your interpretation of "milk blood" is absolutely right. When my best friend and I were shooting year ago, he loved to draw out just enough blood from me to create a rose in the syringe, then re-inject it. That guaranteed he hit a vein and did give me a great high before I started to nod on and off.
@headlessparrot minor quibble, but Danny Whitten didn't actually die of a heroin OD. Yes, he was horribly strung out, and sooner or later he would have had he kept going as he was, but technically, what killed Danny Whitten was Valium and alcohol. Might have been helped along by whatever H was InHim at the time, not to mention he had to have been in a weakened state from a few years of hardcore drug addiction ... but his actual cause of death was diazepam intoxication.
@headlessparrot minor quibble, but Danny Whitten didn't actually die of a heroin OD. Yes, he was horribly strung out, and sooner or later he would have had he kept going as he was, but technically, what killed Danny Whitten was Valium and alcohol. Might have been helped along by whatever H was InHim at the time, not to mention he had to have been in a weakened state from a few years of hardcore drug addiction ... but his actual cause of death was diazepam intoxication.
I'm not even going to begin to point out the meaning of this song to you. To quote from the master himself, Bill Hicks, (drug addicts) "they are sick, they are not criminals". I guess you have no real compassion for people. You can't just make a broad generalisation that all drug addicts want to be addicts. I'm going to stop now before I get angry...
This song reminds me on Layne Staley. The article in Rolling Stone( 1996- I think ) magazine about Layne was titled>The Needle And The Damage Done. I don
t know when this song was written, but its like he is singing about him. Layne, I love you.2nd!
2nd!
@mojo risin It's always great to see Layne Staley's mentioned on non-AIC forums/videos, he definitely deserves to be remembered.
@mojo risin It's always great to see Layne Staley's mentioned on non-AIC forums/videos, he definitely deserves to be remembered.
"The worst drugs are as bad as anybody's told you. It's just a dumb trip, which I can't condemn people if they get into it, because one gets into it for one's own personal, social, emotional reasons."
-John Lennon
My father was a big Neil Young fan, and I eventually became one too. He told me this was about infamous Sid Vicious, the bassist for the Sex Pistols in the '70s. Sid was never a heroine drug addict until meeting Nancy Spungen, a heavy heroine addict and overall drug abuser. Sid fell for her and eventually became one too, and so Nancy dragged her man down with her to the grave. He did love her, and before his death, he was kicked out of the Sex Pistols to spend his last days with his hopeless addiction, and eventually dying in 1979 after Nancy.
I don't know about sympathy...the song seems to be more of a warning about the dangers of drug abuse. He has been around a lot of folks that couldn't get enough, turned into junkies, and are "like a setting sun" pushing themselves to an inevitable end.
@speterso74 I was 13 when it came out, it was a good song, it gave you the direct message that heroin addiction was very damaging.
@speterso74 I was 13 when it came out, it was a good song, it gave you the direct message that heroin addiction was very damaging.
I thought that the line "milk blood to keep from running out" was about how junkies used to sell their blood to the blood bank for money, so they could buy another fix. Thats way back, and I might be wrong. Great song though....
thanks guys, l couldn't work out if this song was about heroin injecting junkies or the increasing amount of men making patchwork quilts.
@sleepsy I always thought it was about phonograph needles and the damage they do to the fidelity of a recording.
@sleepsy I always thought it was about phonograph needles and the damage they do to the fidelity of a recording.
"I've seen the needle and the damage done A little part of it in everyone"
Way out there and over analysing just want to put my 2 cents worth in like everybody else has and it's probably been said before but I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH!!!
Anyway back to my point:
"I've seen the needle and the damage done A little part of it in everyone"
Man-kind is always addicted to something Whether it be drugs, alcohol, gambling, women
But when he sings "But every junkie's like a settin' sun." Just like his rendition of Imagine after 9/11... He sang: "Imagine no possessions I wonder if I can." As opposed to Lennon's: "if you can"
I say to Neil's last line instead of "But every junkie's like a settin' sun" I say: And everyone's like a setting sun