A-side "Hey Baby" Recorded 1976 Length 2:48 | Released 1977 Genre Blues rock Label Shelter | |
"Cocaine" is a song written and recorded in 1976 by singer-songwriter J. J. Cale. The song was popularized by Eric Clapton after his cover version was released on the 1977 album Slowhand.
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Eric Clapton version
Glyn Johns produced the Clapton recording, which was released on the 1977 album Slowhand. A live version of "Cocaine" from the album Just One Night charted on the Billboard Hot 100 as the B-side of "Tulsa Time", which was a No. 30 hit in 1980. "Cocaine" was one of several of Cale's songs recorded by Clapton, including "After Midnight" and "Travelin' Light". AllMusic critic Richard Gilliam called the latter "among [Clapton's] most enduringly popular hits" and noted that "even for an artist like Clapton with a huge body of high-quality work, 'Cocaine' ranks among his best."
Clapton described "Cocaine" as an anti-drug song. He called the song "quite cleverly anti-cocaine", noting:
It's no good to write a deliberate anti-drug song and hope that it will catch. Because the general thing is that people will be upset by that. It would disturb them to have someone else shoving something down their throat. So the best thing to do is offer something that seems ambiguous—that on study or on reflection actually can be seen to be "anti"—which the song "Cocaine" is actually an anti-cocaine song. If you study it or look at it with a little bit of thought ... from a distance ... or as it goes by ... it just sounds like a song about cocaine. But actually, it is quite cleverly anti-cocaine.
Because of its ambiguous message, Clapton did not perform the song in many of his concerts; over the years, he has added the lyrics 'that dirty cocaine' in live shows to underline the anti-drug message of the song.
Other cover versions
A live cover by the Scottish rock band Nazareth appeared on their albums The Fool Circle and 'Snaz. Guitarist Andy Taylor of Duran Duran recorded it for his 1990 solo album Dangerous. A variant of the song was featured on Dave Van Ronk's 1963 album Folksinger .
In 2008, country singer Gretchen Wilson quoted the melody from the tag end of the chorus ("she don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie") for her song "Work Hard, Play Harder" (which also borrowed from The Black Crowes). The hard rock band Black Robot covered the song on their 2010 self-titled album. Post-grunge band Puddle of Mudd included a cover as a bonus track for their 2011 covers-album Re:(disc)overed. Old Lady Drivers released a cover of the song on their 1988 self titled debut album.
In popular culture
The song was featured in the 2004 film Starsky & Hutch and in the 2005 films Lord of War and Bad News Bears.