Drug music

Cheap therapy.

Whenever I would play music that my father liked—or music that my mother imagined that my father might like—she would tell me, “Turn off that drug music.” (You guessed correctly that they divorced when I was a child.) Naturally, my favorite drug songs were on a well-worn tape of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Whenever I was pissed off, I played it as loud as I dared on my beloved stereo. The stereo, of course, was a gift from my father. The chanting chorus of “We don’t need no education!” would send her through the roof. It was music-drug-induced euphoria to exercise independent thought and individuality since these were not traits cultivated in my mother’s house.

I am certain that in high school nobody knew I actively sought emotional solace from poems and music of 20th century outsiders and counterculture. I read and re-read Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” and all things T.S. Eliot. How could a person take regular words and put them together to make imagery with such complicated feelings? I took a deep dive into non-mainstream rock and folk artists. The world saw a rule-following student worried about getting A’s and having friends while wearing white Tretorn sneakers and listening to lots of Madonna. My hidden musical moments were my antidepressant drugs—validating deep feelings of not fitting in.

Then I got to college. Y’all, I was like a racehorse at Churchill Downs after the bell rings and the gate opens. My first university class ever was the first period of the day on the first day of the quarter. I had arrived early enough to be sitting strategically mid-room. Just as the professor started, this dude walked in with his tie-dye shirt and his Judd Nelson hair and casually slid into the last seat in the front row. I was done for. I lingered after class to try to bump into him. I lingered before class to try to, nonchalantly, end up in the open seat next to him. I remember putting at least twice as much effort into the chemistry of the infatuation than into the Chemistry of the class. The spark for us hanging out together outside of class or study groups at the Science Library was that we had discovered we both had a “thing” for Neil Young. I had never met someone who loved the same music as me and also read the lyrics and grooved on putting on a great album and listening to it from start to finish. This was the first guy who liked me for ME—intoxicating—and Mr. Young sang his love-drug music in the background.

This guy and I were kinda on/off through my years in Athens, GA. He wasn’t the love of my life. Neither was the guy who took me on the day before I turned 22 to see Neil Young play Harvest Moon at Red Rocks. Here’s the setlist. I gotta admit that A) the moonrise as Neil sang Harvest Moon was pretty damn cool and B) I don’t think that concert date was without ulterior motives. The concert guy didn’t like Neil Young OR the Grateful Dead. Why didn’t I heed those red flags?

Thanks to Railroad Earth for the photo of a September full moon at Red Rocks.

You can imagine that as a young adult in the early-mid 90’s, I was heavily into Pearl Jam. I saw them at UGA’s Legion Field just before they hit it big and let me tell you…if I had made over to Eddie after he jumped into the crowd he probably would have fallen instantly in love with me and we would have had a huge romance. Totally plausible, I was pretty hot in 1992. OK so my point is, Eddie Vedder writes songs that validate the human experience and his voice is...all the things. Listening to Daughter is a powerful drug with the side effect of involuntarily crying seething hot tears. It’s an emotional emetic and my ultimate therapy song.

So yeah, drug music is a thing, I guess. Here’s you a happy pill for when you’re feeling faint of heart…

Do you have musical therapy songs too?