# LSD, heroin, crack, speed, cocaine and music



## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I was just wondering about the relationship between popular drugs and popular music in different periods of the history of non-classical music.

Dominant drug habits seem to change constantly and so does popular music. We may tend to forget about the influence of drugs on (the type of/atmosphere of the) music because it's an extra-musical influence but in my opinion the influence might be quite strong. So strong that it leaves a stamp on the music that dominates periods. LSD > psychedelics. Heroin > Velvet Underground/Lou Reed come to mind. Cocaine/speed etc. And whatever people take nowadays.

I don't know that much about drugs and who took what in which period but do you think the music of the time is influenced by the dominant drug habits of the time? I mean beyond the influence drugs might have on individual artists.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

It's all true what those preachers said about rock music in the 50s....


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

For a great read in the Rock field I recommend White Bicycles by Joe Boyd. IN it he relates how he helped get Pink Floyd their first London gigs, 'discovered' Nick Drake etc, etc. But he offers his reason why the great careers of the 60's musicians stalled in the 70's. Cocaine.

There is a popular assumption that drugs aid creativity. The proof is hard to find and the down side is often ignored. Cocaine didn't kill those individuals, it just made them a lot less sensitive.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

There once was a guy named Hector Berlioz that wrote a little ditty known as the Symphonies Fantastique, depicting an opium induced nightmare. If you listen to early music, there is a heck of a lot of drinking songs.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Drugs. Hard to say. A lot of anecdotal material, often contradictory. Reading Graham Nash's autobiography, one sees his friend and bandmate David Crosby completely falling apart as both artist and person until his final recovery. Yet Janis Joplin was doing some of her best work right up until she OD'd on heroin. Stevie Ray Vaughan got well and said getting well saved him as an artist, while many of the Grunge crew went down the tubes in the midst of their careers. I would guess, though, that it's pretty hard to sit down and write good stuff, and then practice it, while you're stoned out of your mind, so maybe it's an intermittent thing: On/Off.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Link for the effect of LSD on a portrait artist.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> Link for the effect of LSD on a portrait artist.


The last sentence in the text is, I presume, an unintended pun: "But it's surmised that the researcher was Oscar Janiger, a University of California-Irvine psychiatrist _known for his work on LSD_."


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

JAS said:


> The last sentence in the text is, I presume, an unintended pun: "But it's surmised that the researcher was Oscar Janiger, a University of California-Irvine psychiatrist _known for his work on LSD_."


 ..........................................


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> Link for the effect of LSD on a portrait artist.


Interesting and strange. The total dose the artist took was small, 100 micrograms total in two doses spaced an hour apart. By contrast, the average dose for acid hits on the street in the early 1970s was around 250 micrograms. I find it strange that this artist's work seems to have been so strongly affected by such a small dose. Unfortunately, no drawings were made when the artist was peaking (which should have been around 4 hours after taking the first dose). The work of artists I knew who took much higher doses was not affected as strongly as this artist's was. Maybe boredom with the repetitive task had something to do with it.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Apparently Ousley Stanley had the good (LSD) stuff. Jerry Garcia seemed to enjoy it. I'm assuming cocaine was the go to drug in the 70s? The effect was rather destructive from what I've read. 

Miles Davis was doing a lot of drugs in the early 70s. His music was pretty dark as well. I was more drawn to the music of the non drug musicians. Zappa, Ian Anderson, Robert Fripp, John McLaughlin, etc...


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

lucy in the sky with diamonds


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Triplets said:


> There once was a guy named Hector Berlioz that wrote a little ditty known as the Symphonies Fantastique, depicting an opium induced nightmare.


Ha Ha now I know why I could never get on with that work, I was beginning to think it was me.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I doubt that Berlioz did that much opium....he had an illness and he was treated for it with opium. People were a lot more stoic back then. I read his autobiography, which is a great read. A lot of people have had to take opiates for pain and once the pain is over, a bottle of it sits around, without any desire to touch it. He may have described the effects of it, but I don't think he described the addiction to it, like de Quincey. Cooleridge was a massive mind, his collected works were immense. The fact that he experimented with it doesn't mean he was a longterm addict. I just did some research so I'm aware of the websites that come up when you search on "Berlioz opium." People today may forget the profound effects that poetry and other arts can have on one, let alone spirituality:

Quote from a website:

In a letter to his father, he once said: "I see myself in a mirror. Often I experience the most extraordinary impressions, of which nothing can give any idea… the effect is like that of opium."

end quote
http://www.classicfm.com/discover-m...music-drugs/schumann-mercury-quiinie-arsenic/


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

regenmusic said:


> I doubt that Berlioz did that much opium....he had an illness and he was treated for it with opium. People were a lot more stoic back then.


Somethimes I think that in the romantic movement, and its heavy influence of eastern philosophies, drugs play at least some part...


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Lenny said:


> Somethimes I think that in the romantic movement, and its heavy influence of eastern philosophies, drugs play at least some part...


It's interesting to think about but then poets were treated like Kings back then. What are they treated like now 

Also, everyone who was a visual artist, actually could paint, and often the works are transcendental. I don't think society has gone to the dogs but I think many people need to get out of the "drugs are the answer bandwagon." It's probably because there is huge money in prescription "mind drugs" ....psychoanalysis is a lost science.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Art Rock said:


> Link for the effect of LSD on a portrait artist.


Very interesting. I can see music change the same way 'under influence'.


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)




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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

https://www.beatlesbible.com/1964/08/28/bob-dylan-turns-the-beatles-on-to-cannabis/

It's all Dylan's fault.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I certainly don't need drugs to be creative.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Art Rock said:


> Link for the effect of LSD on a portrait artist.


I think they actually get worse as he progresses through the "trip".


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I don't believe in drugs and creativity, I think it's an illusion to some degree and a shortcut in many ways. That implies it does effect artists, and it does, it can help get you in touch with yourself, but like the "hippie culture", it's a shortcut to spiritual enlightenment imo and less rewarding and can lead to very big problems.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I certainly don't need drugs to be creative.


Me neither, never tried it either, wast of money and your life.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I agree. Drugs are something to be very careful with if you want to live longer and stay in some control over your life. They can be very dangerous. But I don't believe there is no connection between drugs and creativity. I think there certainly is. There are many great artists in jazz and pop culture that are still remembered today although they only lived shortly because their drug taking became an uncontrollable habit. I don't mean everybody should or has taken drugs but among those that did were great artists.

I myself only take drugs that have (mainly) short term effects I can manage precisely like cafeine, nicotine and alcohol. (I don't deny they have long term effects as well, it's a choice one has to make). And even these simple drugs certainly have an influence on creativity imo. They help concentration, activity and loosening up a little. In the right mix they help productivity. I've also taken weed long ago with friends. It was quite pleasant, exhilarating and relaxing for the time being but it didn't appeal to me because it didn't help being productive in my line of work. But then I'm not a creative artist. When cocaine etc. got popular I backed down so I have only very limited experience myself and the overall majority of drugs doesn't appeal to me. I'm even quite afraid of them. Nevertheless in general I think drug taking should be viewed with caution but not as horror itself. It all depends on knowing what you're doing and staying in control (which seems to be quite difficult with some drugs, so don't take them).


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Casebearer said:


> I agree. Drugs are something to be very careful with if you want to live longer and stay in some control over your life. They can be very dangerous. But I don't believe there is no connection between drugs and creativity. I think there certainly is. There are many great artists in jazz and pop culture that are still remembered today although they only lived shortly because their drug taking became an uncontrollable habit. I don't mean everybody should or has taken drugs but among those that did were great artists.
> 
> I myself only take drugs that have (mainly) short term effects I can manage precisely like cafeine, nicotine and alcohol. (I don't deny they have long term effects as well, it's a choice one has to make). And even these simple drugs certainly have an influence on creativity imo. They help concentration, activity and loosening up a little. In the right mix they help productivity. I've also taken weed long ago with friends. It was quite pleasant, exhilarating and relaxing for the time being but it didn't appeal to me because it didn't help being productive in my line of work. But then I'm not a creative artist. When cocaine etc. got popular I backed down so I have only very limited experience myself and the overall majority of drugs doesn't appeal to me. I'm even quite afraid of them. Nevertheless in general I think drug taking should be viewed with caution but not as horror itself. It all depends on knowing what you're doing and staying in control (which seems to be quite difficult with some drugs, so don't take them).


I can say I've experimented, but definitely don't endorse that culture at all. I don't think drugs offer anything you can't get in more healthy routes.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

It's very dangerous to buy drugs on the street, you never know what they have mixed it with or laced it with. It's not worth the risk at all. You can be creative without drugs, I wrote some of my best music before I experimented. But my creativity is not dependent on it.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Music itself is a powerful drug; poetry, art, thought. Being outdoors on a beautiful day or on a warm, windy night. I abandoned all others many decades ago, as they were making me sick. Lucky.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> It's very dangerous to buy drugs on the street, you never know what they have mixed it with or laced it with. It's not worth the risk at all. You can be creative without drugs, I wrote some of my best music before I experimented. But my creativity is not dependent on it.


You mean driving around in a car looking for seedy characters on street corners? Well, yeah. One shouldn't buy anything (hot dogs, used cars, pets, pirated CDs, unprotected sex, etc.) from suspicious looking people one doesn't know. That's basic. Know your dealer, know who grew your weed, let your neighbor take the little pill first and see whether he survives.  Seriously, though, sometimes getting jolted out of a rut and gaining a new perspective on what one is writing can be helpful, whether this is accomplished through travel, a new activity, or even ingesting a mysterious chemical. Depending on such expedients is, of course, not recommended.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> You mean driving around in a car looking for seedy characters on street corners? Well, yeah. One shouldn't buy anything (hot dogs, used cars, pets, pirated CDs, unprotected sex, etc.) from suspicious looking people one doesn't know. That's basic. Know your dealer, know who grew your weed, let your neighbor take the little pill first and see whether he survives.  Seriously, though, sometimes getting jolted out of a rut and gaining a new perspective on what one is writing can be helpful, whether this is accomplished through travel, a new activity, or even ingesting a mysterious chemical. Depending on such expedients is, of course, not recommended.


I just don't believe in drugs. I've never had a problem with writers block with composing, it's the easiest thing in the world for me to do, even sober!


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Casebearer said:


> I agree. Drugs are something to be very careful with if you want to live longer and stay in some control over your life. They can be very dangerous. But I don't believe there is no connection between drugs and creativity. I think there certainly is. There are many great artists in jazz and pop culture that are still remembered today although they only lived shortly because their drug taking became an uncontrollable habit. I don't mean everybody should or has taken drugs but among those that did were great artists.
> 
> I myself only take drugs that have (mainly) short term effects I can manage precisely like cafeine, nicotine and alcohol. (I don't deny they have long term effects as well, it's a choice one has to make). And even these simple drugs certainly have an influence on creativity imo. They help concentration, activity and loosening up a little. In the right mix they help productivity. I've also taken weed long ago with friends. It was quite pleasant, exhilarating and relaxing for the time being but it didn't appeal to me because it didn't help being productive in my line of work. But then I'm not a creative artist. When cocaine etc. got popular I backed down so I have only very limited experience myself and the overall majority of drugs doesn't appeal to me. I'm even quite afraid of them. Nevertheless in general I think drug taking should be viewed with caution but not as horror itself. It all depends on knowing what you're doing and staying in control (which seems to be quite difficult with some drugs, so don't take them).


Not politically correct, but I have to agree I think there is some correlation. Look at Berlioz's symphony, also with the Beatles, Beach Boys, Love, Tim Buckley, Jefferson Airplane. Luckily you don't need to be on drugs to enjoy the music. My friend was surprised I could like psychedelic music without being on drugs.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

This is how I think it turns out when musicians takes drugs for inspiration:


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

In another life, I would've been a hippie dancing on LSD to psychedelic trance music on the beaches of Goa. 

Nah, but really, there was a period in my life where I would've liked to experience something like that. Now I'm way past that (I still like some of the music ).


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