Does The Velvet Underground Condone Heroin? Analysis and Origin of 'Heroin'

Heroin was written by Lou Reed in his days at Syracuse University (‘60-‘64), which means that he had to of been a mere eighteen at the time he wrote it. Heroin was originally recorded in The Velvet Underground’s New York City loft in 1965. It featured Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, and John Cale. Unlike other songs on their debut album, such as Venus in Furs, this ’65 version is almost identical to the one that appears on The Velvet Underground & Nico. While recording the final version of the song for the album, Maureen Tucker stopped playing the drums at around the five minute mark because she got lost. Although this was a mistake, they kept this lack of drums because it added to the eerie feeling of the song.

When listening to Heroin for the first time, I have to admit that I was shocked to discover that I really enjoyed it. The song is more upbeat than I imagined it to be, since it is, after all, a song about injecting heroin. The song starts out slow and melodic, you can easily hear Lou Reed’s guitar, Maureen Tucker’s steady drums, Sterling Morrison’s rhythm guitar, and John Cale’s smooth electric viola. As the song progresses the tempo picks up and the instruments are joined by Lou Reed’s deep voice. The upbeat and soothing song then leads to chaos with the absence of Tucker’s drums and the screeching of Cale’s viola. The song then returns to the soft melody with which it began.

At the start of the song it seems as if Lou Reed is condoning taking heroin, with both the soothing beat and the lyrics that say “'cause it makes me feel like I'm a man, when I put a spike into my vein.” Reed was using heroin to block out and numb the rest of the world with its “politicians makin' crazy sounds, and everybody puttin' everybody else down, and all the dead bodies piled up in mounds.” When listening to the lyrics more closely, it is clear that Reed does not believe that taking heroin is good. He says, “heroin, be the death of me. 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 and dead.” Reed realizes that it is consuming and controlling his entire life and that, if he does not quit it soon, it will most definitely end his life. It is a debated fact whether or not The Velvet Underground is condoning the use of heroin. One critic, Mark Deming, wrote that "While 'Heroin' hardly endorses drug use, it doesn't clearly condemn it, either, which made it all the more troubling in the eyes of many listeners."  In my opinion, though, Reed is clearly condemning the use of heroin because of its strong control on an addicts life.

While it may be clear to some that Reed was writing the song to condemn the use of heroin, it was not clear to all. In an interview, Reed said in a 1971 interview with Creem magazine that, “I meant those songs to sort of exorcise the darkness, or the self-destructive element in me, and hoped other people would take them the same way. But when I saw how people were responding to them, it was disturbing. Because, like, people would come up and say, 'I shot up to 'Heroin,' things like that. For a while, I was even thinking that some of my songs might have contributed formatively to the consciousness of all these addictions and things going down with the kids today. But I don't think that anymore; it's really too awful a thing to consider.” While researching Heroin, I found a comment from a person explaining the significance of the song in their life. They explained that they had always enjoyed the song but that when a friend of theirs heard it, he thought it to be condoning heroin. This friend, a heroin addict, ended up overdosing on heroin while listening to the song and is now in a heroin-induced coma. This person’s friend just used heroin, as most addicts do, to nullify and numb his life. The lyrics of The Velvet Underground song became true in this person’s life. The Velvet Underground sends the message, through this song, that heroin is something that will just lead to numb disappointment and, eventually, death.

Not only do the lyrics illustrate the effects of heroin, but the music seems to take the listener through the experience one gets from injecting heroin. The music starts out smooth and melodic, and the addict, as Reed says, “feels like a man” when he injects it. Then the music gets louder, showing that the drugs are kicking in. Near the end of the song Cale’s viola starts screeching, illustrating the addict’s loss of reality and control. The drugs are working in full force at this point. Then, as the effects wear off, it seems, the music returns to the soothing and harmonious sound that it had at the start. This song could, not only be seen as a single experience with heroin, but also the affect of heroin over one’s lifetime. It begins with a person clean of drugs. Then, at the start of their drug use, the person is enjoying the sensations that heroin causes. As their addiction to heroin increases, the addict begins to lose control. Heroin is now their sole love, as Reed says, “heroin, it's my wife and it's my life.” Their consumption by drugs can be seen in the screeching viola. Then, the song returns to the smooth music it was at the start. This can be seen as the addict’s recovery but, and this is the case for most addicts, it probably symbolizes the person’s death.