As SBS 2’s The Feed turn their attention to addiction for a week of special features on the subject, so do we. You may have seen our special on TV characters with addictions of their own over on The Iris, and today on the AU we bring you a playlist of ten tracks we love that focus on, or are inspired by, the topic of addiction. It’s something that we’ve lost many musicians to – be it drug, alcohol or something else – so it’s only natural that their music speaks on the topic. Sometimes about others, often about themselves, and in these cases the results are classic songs in their own right.
Amy Winehouse “Rehab”
It feels a little too easy to start the list with someone who suffered many of her own addictions, which eventually – and sadly – took her from us.
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Under The Bridge”
A classic track which signifies a time in Anthony Kedis’ life where he was addicted to heroin, shooting up “under the bridge downtown”. It’s a masterful song in its honesty, and one of the band’s best.
Velvet Underground “I’m Waiting for the Man”
Though their track “Heroin” is perhaps the first drug related composition that will come to mind, the incredible “Waiting For The Man”, a track written by the late, great Lou Reed about buying $26 worth of Heroin from “the man”. Though Reed continued playing the song after he left the band, David Bowie also had a well known version, which has helped the song become one of Undergound’s most beloved.
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis “Starting Over”
The Grammy award winning album The Heist has a narrative about battling and beating alcohol addiction throughout its many tracks, and in this one it comes to a head, “If I can be an example of getting sober / Then I can be an example of starting over”.
Pearl Jam “Habit”
Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready’s addictions are believed to be the focus of this track. In the quotes I’ve read, he pointed to alcohol as the main cause here, though heroin seems to have been the cause for the song.
Passion Pit “Cry Like a Ghost”
Their album Gossamer came after frontman Michael Angelakos spent time in a mental hospital and struggled with addiction. Heavy stuff. He tackles it head on with this track: “Yes, I drank all those drinks on my own. My life’s become some blurry little quest.”
Etta James “I’d Rather Go Blind”
A classic song about James “being blind in her ‘love life’ and her ‘personal ways,'” the latter of which refers to her drug addictions. In spite of her health troubles and addictions, in the end it was complications from leukemia that took this incredibly talented artist from us in January 2012.
Elbow “Powder Blue”
Guy Garvey is quoted as saying this song was inspired by a “…couple who were both withdrawing, from whatever it was they were addicted to… I noticed a tenderness between the two, despite them obviously being strung out; it was a very romantic, but a rather dark, situation.” A beautiful track and video…
Lily Allen “Everyone’s At It”
In “Everyone’s At It”, Allen takes a different approach to the subject of addiction, saying how these days, every solution involves drugs – whether prescribed or non-prescribed. And everyone from “older politicians” to “young adolescents” are involved.
ScHoolboy Q “Prescription/Oxymoron”
Following on from Lily Allen in showing that over-the-counter drugs can be just as bad as the rest, Q raps here about a variety of drug addictions of the prescription kind, including Xanax and codeine.
For more on addiction, watch The Feed on SBS 2, tonight and tomorrow night at 7.35pm.
