Pain, Ecstacy, Confusion, Enlightenment.: A Personal Discourse on Heroin by The Velvet Underground

Richard Ashcroft, formerly of the Verve, once sang "cause tonight I just want to hear some sounds recognize the pain in me".

I am not in pain. Not exactly in the usual sense. Pain is to me just one facet of countless emotions that has to do with life.

But pain is always the first word that comes to mind whenever I listen to this song, mainly because of the beating my ears take: the barrage of screeches, halts, punches, and non-sequitor pseudo-brilliant phrases all incorporates into an exquisite dance of pain.

Yet, The Velvet's "Heroin" is the most honest, and visceral song I have ever listened to. I live in the 7:10 minutes of this song. True, I have never put a smike into my veins, but "Heroin" is such a beautifully crafted metaphor on being human.

Beneath the narrator's stream-of-consciousness monologue about the experience and effects of heroin lies an undercurrent of truths-hard, in-your-face, broken truths about him, you, me, and everyone else. Being human. Being alive.

Heroin is the catalytic agent trasnforming a merely polite socially adaptable man into a raw, honest, selfish person as he repeats, "but I guess, but I just don't know" while in the throes of rapturous ecstasy. Having just plunged into the depths of his own dark, base soul, he discovers he just doesn't know. Pre-smike or not, it doesn't matter. And this is all there is to it.

Don't know what? Death? Life? Purpose?

I echo in agreemane with every part of it: mantras about everything I'm ever told should be important; the adventure I've always wanted to go on, discovering myself though destructive ways, things I can't help but be addicted to...things I am powerless to face; and everything I let work myself into a frightful pallid frenzy until I finally...give up thinking, fighting, caring...lest it kills me. I give it up, and I am as I were before...a not knowing, fearful, broken human being, reduced to the certainty of pulses, and from that, heartbeats and white noises that pulsates rhythmically with the soundtrack of the drums in my 7:10 minutes of life.

Is life really just faith in the I don't knows?

here's something I'm working on: GLORY DAYS

GLORY DAYS OF CONVERSATIONAL SUICIDE

A theory of particular interest to me surfaced one day in the period of my life I would ascribe to as Glory Days….it was college, and so much for my attempt to make my life dramatic and suspenseful. I remember fondly those days spent talking to my friends on “Fred”, the couches located in the lobby of our dorm. And I recall especially well a theory the cooler-than-thou upperclassmen imparted onto the young and impressionable minds of us first years. At one point in our trajectory into the random and nuanced experiences and trivialities of life spanning from dusk to dawn, one wiser, but shorter upperclass-MAN remarked at the sudden death in conversation that had blanketed our once jovial and convivial social party. (By the law of the University of Chicago’s Housing Office, a party is by definition an unintentional and intentional gathering of 5 or more people in a tightly confined place, and this, friends, is by turn illegal by housing standards without proper authorization and recognition. It really sucks to have to have clearance for a party!) The male friend’s theory is conversational suicide occurs every quarter before and after the hour, making it a precise and recordable phenomena that happens roughly every half hour. How interesting!

MUTUAL CONVERSATION

In the last few days, I have really come to treasure mutual conversation. It sounds redundant, but in actuality is not, especially since we’ve all been part of a supposed exchange of information where honestly both parties were just waiting for the other to stop talking. You’ve all seen it…the gradual dilation of the pupils…the glazy stare...the drool. Ok, I am exaggerating, but drool is the next logical step. Nevertheless, it’s still rejection.

My latest exchange has been in such a vein as this. It started with a mutually admired interest from both parties: music. And then I noticed the sudden lack of focus on the part of my listener.

I admit. I can become adamantly passionate about music, or any topic in general, but especially music. My listener wanted to know which of the artists I listen to are my favorite. Uh-oh, I remember thinking, this might take years, but let me streamline it for his benefit. Uh…indie rock, 70’s rock bands, and (here’s the kicker) bands I cannot categorize, e.g. Soul Coughing. I even remarked my heart broke when I found out they disbanded. The horror! I’ve recently been listening to a lot of Tom Waits and Nick Drake. Oh, and an English singer songwriter by the name of Badly Drawn Boy is really great. So much for my ill construed and articulated babble about my rock heroes!

THOUGHTS ON TOM WAITS

Once in a while, I put on my Tom Waits albums. I use them sparingly. I used to play them incessantly, but the constant company of confessions from a man who feels and sees too much drove me into a near unending depression. Eventually I cut back on my Tom Waits, and accepted Jesus as my Lord and savior.

Since then, I take out my treasured albums only a few times a year, like old buddies from my comfortable yet besotted past, whose presence makes me realize that I had died and had been reborn with the same memories, but altogether different disposition. Listening to Tom Waits has always been like catching up and chatting with a former companion over coffee, but since I don’t drink coffee anymore, I think a nice herbal tea would do. I believe this makes me sound like a wimp, but I cannot have caffeine anymore. Not an excuse; just a reality.

And reality is what I’ve always enjoyed about Tom Waits; he sings about what he sees and (over) hears. His honest tales about the poor and the desolate, though objective, are laden with emotion and meditations on life. His are tales spewed out from inebriated tongues gathered around stale wooden tables soaked in smokes and sweat housed in ubiquitous dive bars and once-trendy hangouts all over the nation. Tom Waits records stories about modern Americana, albeit a saddened and listless culture. His creations have centered on the formerly illustrious and toasts of town: the washed up waitress who used to be the town beauty, the drunk pining with regret over the broken love affair in his sordid past, the aged debonair still clinging to the glory of his youth. These people need to be saved from their selves. These people are you. And these people are I.

I often picture Tom Waits in a dark dank bar, his back turned toward the rest of the crowd, yet silently and cautiously listening in on every conversation in the room. He’ll make a mental note with one word or one tone from the eavesdropped conversation, shelve it, and store it on the table of his memory. From his audience, he’ll remember one object of distinction: the frayed hem of the otherwise glamorously dressed starlet. Sitting alone in a booth parked against a desolate corner of the hangout, he’ll order a whiskey, his attention seemingly elsewhere. But he is actually really focused on the barmaid: at her awkward gait and steely voice as she asks him whether he wants his drink dry or on the rocks.

I relish his every awkward word, weary intonation, and enunciation. He sings as if what he has to say are the most important words in the world; and when he sings, his earthy baritone is the only voice echoing on the earth. His voice is the most powerful instrument. It is magical, and sounds like the cacophony of a drunken bar room chorus/bar full of drunken people all singing in unison; people united by life…and by whisky. His is a raspy tattered vibrato on a bass, capable of much emotion. I can grovel a bucket of dirt and pebbles, and still not be able to reach the range of Tom Waits voice. I would only hurt myself. His voice is of miles of well-traveled road, and not of one of the naiveté.

I've been fixing for some Tom Waits. Hmmm so good, that I'm thinking about naming my children after the titles of his songs....Tom Traubert? Rosie?? Small Change???

I'm also writing about Tom Waits...should be on this site sometime next week...after I finish my article.