A Heady Cocktail

Or the don’t-try-this-ever-or-you’d-be-dead playlist. The theme for this one hits you smack on the face and what inspired it should be just as obvious – I was listening to a ZZ Top tribute CD released last year and repeats of The Rolling Stones’s ‘Sticky Fingers’. Why, what else were you thinking?

So sandwiched between the relatively innocuous (hah) ZZ Top bar-burner ‘Beer Drinkers And Hellraisers’ covered with sufficient vigour by Coheed and Cambria and the George Thorogood & The Destroyers romp of a take of John Lee Hooker’s ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer’, are the more insidious ‘Cocaine’ (the original) by J.J. Cale, ‘Sister Morphine’ spiked with an additional reference to its more notorious cousin – refer the previous song in this list – by The Rolling Stones featuring Ry Cooder’s superb work on the slide guitar and The Velvet Underground’s very disturbing and direct and brilliant ‘Heroin’. I was inclined to add VU’s outright sinister ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’ but that would’ve been an overdose, if you’ll pardon the expression (aw c’mon, I couldn’t resist that, could I now?).

The subject of most of these songs gets a lot of people squirming but nonetheless they are great songs musically. And for the record, I don’t do narcotics nor do I condone drug abuse. However, I do consume heavily of music.

A Heady Cocktail.mp3

8 Comments

  1. Sataract says:

    There’s also the fairly mild “Roll another join” from Mr. Petty and the melodious cacophony of “Cigarettes and Alcohol” from the Gallaghers 🙂

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    1. DyingNote says:

      There’s no end to it, man! But thanks for the additions to the list

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  2. ZZ Top!! Had forgotten about that one! A great party-starter… :o). Great bunch of songs with a clever tie-in… ;o)

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    1. DyingNote says:

      Thanks. I hear ZZ Top’s coming out with a new album this year

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  3. Elliot says:

    I never got into ZZ top but my have Stones album is Sticky fingers. Got to love that one. The subject matter never bothered me, I like things if they seem to make sense, tell a story, or seem symbiotic with the music.

    Have you heard the new Bobby Womack album and some of the tales on that?

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    1. DyingNote says:

      I have heard ‘The Bravest Man In The Universe’ streamed a few times and I mostly liked it. But what tales?

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      1. Elliot says:

        I should clarify, the pitchfork review explains a little: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16721-the-bravest-man-in-the-universe/

        You kind of need a little background to get the tales, so they are not tales in the e.g. Springsteen sense, but echoes or replies to real scenario. – Well to a point, I imagine there is some fiction in there. I like the idea of someone singing in a voice which sounds lived in, to something which sounds real (whether it is or not).

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        1. DyingNote says:

          Hmmm…that helps. Thanks for the link

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