It is truly a beautiful song, but I’m not convinced it was about his father dying of cancer. According to Ashcroft’s Wikipedia page his father died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage. The drugs don’t work single Wikipedia page says
‘Lead singer Richard Ashcroft wrote the song in early 1995. He briefly mentioned it in an interview at the time, relating it to his drug usage: “There’s a new track I’ve just written […] It goes ‘the drugs don’t work, they just make me worse, and I know I’ll see your face again’. That’s how I’m feeling at the moment. They make me worse, man. But I still take ’em. Out of boredom and frustration you turn to something else to escape.” ‘
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There is also an acoustic version on the live peel sessions where he changes the lyric to the ‘The drugs don’t work, they just make me worse’. The lyric ‘never coming down’ is also usually associated with drug use as in the come down after getting high. They were heavily drug influenced and their early music was, according to Ashcroft, recorded on acid and many other songs they wrote were also related to recreational drugs such as ‘Blue’ and ‘make it til Monday’.
I think people who have gone through the experience of a loved one dying of cancer can relate to this song and identify with it in their own way and that’s part of what makes the verve’s music so unique and so emotional, that they become personal. The song is what you want it to be, but I reckon Richard wrote it with recreational drugs in mind.
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Aside from the confusion about the ‘drugs’ lyric I think the meaning and themes within the song are fairly obvious. Personally, I think its a love song to someone who is in pain and whose attempts to escape the pain through drugs (recreational, medicinal or metaphorical) is ultimately just making their pain worse. But they’re likely to repeat the pattern over and over again (like an addiction) – ‘I know I’ll see your face again’ could be a double meaning for both this pattern perpetuating itself and also the hope or knowing that ‘if heaven calls’ you’l still see your loved one again.
Also the first verse ends ‘This time I’m coming down’, indicating Ashcroft is mirroring the addiction of the loved one, which makes sense when taking into account the alternate version of the ‘drugs make ME worse’, in terms of how he evolved the song. Making the ending of ‘never coming down no more no more’ and the intensity he sings it at as he takes destiny into his own hands to change the pattern, which is certainly a theme on the urban hymns album, all the more emotional.
But as i said before, the important thing is what you get from it.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHEN
