I'm a child of the Seventies, which is to say, my coming-of-age just missed "The Summer of Love" but was in full swing in time for the bicentennial of the U.S.A.'s Revolutionary War.
There was definitely a "drug culture", even in my rural high school, but it centered on wacky tobaccy. Add to that my tendency to be a rule-follower and my foundational fear of having my parents catch me doing anything illegal or immoral, and you will surmise that I had no practical knowledge of the harder dopamine-releasing substances like cocaine, heroin, or sexual fulfillment.
And so...
When I saw that Number 448 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time was "Heroin" by The Velvet Underground, and read lyrics like "Cause it makes me feel like a man when I put a spike into my vein" and "Heroin, it's my wife and it's my life because a mainer to my vein leads to a center in my head, and then I'm better off dead because when the smack begins to flow, I really don't care anymore about all the Jim-Jim's in this town and all the politicians makin' crazy sounds and everybody puttin' everybody else down and all the dead bodies piled up in mounds"...well... I saw all that and I started picturing a shirtless 80's punk rock band screaming into cheap microphones.
Imagine my shocked surprise to learn that Lou Reed wrote the song in 1964.
1964!
As in "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Last Kiss", 1964!
As in Louis Armstrong singing "Hello Dolly" was Number Three, 1964!
The big groups were the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Supremes. "Velvet Underground" sounds like the title of a cheap porn film.
I was today years old when I learned that I have always been an old coot.
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