King Heroin

from the LP There It Is, Polydor Records, 1972



I know, I know, not exactly the most predictable choice of tracks for my first James Brown post, but this number haunts me like the dope of which he speaks; certainly, in regard to the drug-related drama that surrounded him in the ‘80s and beyond, the ironic prescience of his words here cannot be lost. One of the latent outcomes of our government’s association with South Vietnamese warlords during the Vietnam War was an influx of high quality, low-cost heroin into the United States; not surprisingly, we rose to the occasion and statistics on heroin use began to climb steadily. This was James Brown’s response, perhaps thinking that his miraculous calming of Boston in the midst of the ’68 riots would precipitate his having some genuine impact over a generation’s decision to use H or not; sadly, his words fell mostly on deaf ears, and his own actions in the following decades would forever slight the impact of his message here.