"Trash" is the debut single by American hard rock band the New York Dolls. It was recorded for their 1973 self-titled album and released as a double A-side with the song "Personality Crisis" in July 1973. "Trash" did not chart upon its release, but has since been hailed by music critics as an anthemic glam rock and protopunk song. In 2009, the band recorded a reggae-style version of the song for their album Cause I Sez So.

"Trash" begins immediately with its chorus, in which lead vocalist David Johansen sings dramatically and implores the song's subject—"my sweet baby"—to not throw her "life away." Journalist and author Phil Strongman interpreted the singer's appeal to his subject as being in the context of a socially deviant New York City: "in under four minutes, it tells a bittersweet'n'sour low-life love story – how does the girl call her lover-boy? 'Trash!' – in majestic trash-Glam style. These people might be hookers, rent boys, junkies, – or so the lyrics imply – but they're still human beings and their subject matter is still tragedy." Johansen quotes the lyric "how do you call your lover boy" from Mickey & Sylvia's 1956 song "Love Is Strange".

According to music critic Robert Christgau, Johansen used ambiguity as a lyrical mode on the song, particularly when the lyric "please don't you ask me if I love you" is followed by "if you don't know what I do", and later by "'Cause I don't know why I do". He replaces the phrase "life" in "Don't take my life away" with "knife", "night", and "lights" when singing the lyric at different times throughout the song. Both Strongman and rock photographer Bob Gruen felt that the other chorus about needing to "pick up" trash gave the song an ecological theme: "Trash, pick it up, don't throw my life away."

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