Pharmaceutic Rock

Here's a quick rough of a punk song I never did with any band. It's a rewrite of the Jambox song Sweet Weaving Dancer. I was always fond of the guitar parts. It was like Trout Mask Replica, I always hoped.

The idea for the lyrics came from my old friend, the late Chuck DeClue, singer for the Retros and our band the Obvious for a while. Chuck had a pulp magazine sensibility towards rock lyrics, demonstrated best by his song Henpecked Husband, a song about a henpecked husband who rises up against his wife and kills her and stuffs her body in a trunk one fine day.

After a while I came to think of it as a song about STDs, especially since I usually sang it about sex instead of rock, sex and drugs, and how desperate the need for them is, and how similar the lack of impulse control works with both of them.

When I actually sat down to record it yesterday I couldn't sing it as vulgar and shocking as I should have. So here's the newly-sanitized and less shocking version. You'd almost think it was celebratory if you didn't look behind the words to see sex and need and sweats and death.

Bang me till I bleed
It’s what I really need
Bang me on the floor
Until I beg for more
It’s such a rare disease
And I’m so hard to please
The only cure is more
Of what I came here for

It’s all so vague it can’t be displayed it’s time to call the doctor:

Pharmaceutic rock
Tell me, Doc:
Can you cure the bug?
I’ve ruined another rug!
Pharmaceutic rock
Tell me, Doc:
Should I pull the plug?
Or try another drug?

Rock and roll party doctor!

Rock me, rock rock me rock!

Drug me till I need
Another whack o’crack
Drug me on the floor
And I’ll still beg for more
It’s such a rare disease
And I’m so hard to please
The only thrill is more

Download Pharmaceutic Rock.