Heroin (The Velvet Underground song)
| "Heroin" | |
|---|---|
| Song by the Velvet Underground | |
| from the album The Velvet Underground & Nico | |
| Released | March 12, 1967 |
| Recorded |
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| Genre | Experimental rock |
| Length | 7:12 |
| Label | Verve |
| Songwriter(s) | Lou Reed |
| Producer(s) | Andy Warhol |
| The Velvet Underground & Nico track listing | |
| "Heroin" | ||||
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| Single by Billy Idol | ||||
| from the album Cyberpunk | ||||
| Released | May 4, 1993 (U.S.) | |||
| Format | 5" CD, white vinyl double 12" | |||
| Recorded | 1992, Los Angeles, U.S. | |||
| Genre | Electronic rock, techno | |||
| Label | Chrysalis Records | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Lou Reed with a lyric from Patti Smith's version of "Gloria" | |||
| Producer(s) | Robin Hancock | |||
| Billy Idol singles chronology | ||||
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| Cyberpunk track listing | ||||
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"Heroin" is a song by the Velvet Underground, released on their 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. Written by Lou Reed in 1964, the song, which overtly depicts heroin use and abuse, is one of the band's most celebrated compositions. Critic Mark Deming writes, "While 'Heroin' hardly endorses drug use, it doesn't clearly condemn it, either, which made it all the more troubling in the eyes of many listeners".
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked it #455 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
In an interview with WLIR in 1972, Reed said he wrote the lyrics while working for a record company.
I was working for a record company as a songwriter, where they'd lock me in a room and they'd say write ten surfing songs, ya know, and I wrote "Heroin" and I said "Hey I got something for ya." They said, "Never gonna happen, never gonna happen."
"Heroin" was among a three-song set to be re-recorded, in May 1966 at T.T.G. Studios in Hollywood, before being included on the final release of The Velvet Underground & Nico (along with "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "Venus in Furs"). This recording of the song would be the album's second longest track on the album at 7 minutes and 12 seconds; being eclipsed by "European Son" by only 30 seconds.
"Heroin" begins slowly with Reed's quiet, melodic guitar and hypnotic drum patterns by Maureen Tucker, soon joined by John Cale's droning electric viola and Sterling Morrison's steady rhythm guitar. The tempo increases gradually, mimicking the high the narrator receives from the drug, until a frantic crescendo is reached, punctuated by Cale's shrieking viola and the more punctuated guitar strumming of Reed and Morrison. Tucker's drumming becomes hurried and louder. The song then slows to the original tempo, and repeats the same pattern before ending.
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Wikipedia