Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll

Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll is a rock 'n' roll song from 1977 , written by Ian Dury with Chaz Jankel and sung by Ian Dury, officially without his band Blockheads at the time .

The expression had been used as a phrase in English since at least the late 60s and early 70s and found its way into the German-speaking world.

History of origin

The song was from Ian Dury together with Chaz Jankel, the guitarist and keyboard player of the Blockheads written. A first text suggestion from Dury was only taken up by Jankel when Dury hummed the basic motif. Dury had this riff from a Charlie Haden bass line that played on Ornette Coleman's free jazz album Change of the Century . Dury and Jankel modified this motif slightly:

Riff from Ian Dury's Sex and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll ^{? / i}

Ian Dury's vocals were accompanied by Charlie Charles on drums and Norman Watt-Roy on bass , also members of the Blockheads . According to the label of the single , the piece was produced by Nobody . In August 1977 it was released as a single A-side on Stiff Records with the order number BUY 17 . B-side was "Razzle in my Pocket (True Story)" .

Impact history

"Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll" was one of the first releases on the Stiff label, which Ian Dury had joined in August 1977. It was Ian Dury's first record after Kilburn & the High Roads broke up . The song quickly became a classic; 19,000 copies were sold within a few days. But the press and the public protested violently because of the text; the BBC put the song on the index . Stiff stopped selling after a short time - Ian Dury had to wait for his first chart hit . However, the indexing did the song good - in the era of punk and new wave it was heard even more. Pressings from continental Europe, where there were no concerns about the text, were imported to England and some of them were very expensive.

The bone of contention was above all the textual entry into song: "Sex and drugs and rock and roll / is all my brain and body need / sex and drugs and rock and roll / is very good indeed." ( " Sex , drugs and rock 'n' Roll are everything my brain and body need - sex, drugs and rock'n'roll are really really good. ")

Ian Dury said of his song that it "started as a mild exhortation but ended as a beautiful hymn" - and that it "intended to suggest that there is more to life than these three (themes)".

In December, Stiff Records distributed a single version of "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" at their Christmas party , on the B-side of which two live recordings by Ian Dury & the Kilburns , namely "Two Steep Hills (A Recitation)" and "England's Glory" . 500 more copies of this single were re-pressed in 1978 and raffled off in a NME competition. This single had the catalog number FREEBIE 1 .

In the first edition of Ian Dury's first Stiff - album "New Boots and Panties !!!" , released on 30 September 1977 the song was not present; in later pressings it was added (initially without being named on the cover).

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll is the title of a biographical film about Ian Dury from 2010.

Neuroscientific Background

Most drugs cause a preferential release of neuronal dopamine in the nucleus accumbens . Recent research suggests that many compulsive (non-drug-related) behaviors such as hypersexuality , pathological gambling, or compulsive listening to music also release dopamine in the nucleus accumbens.

Web links

The full text of "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll"

supporting documents

↑ Gerald Handel, Gail G. Whitchurch: The Psychosocial Interior of the Family . Transaction Publishers, 1968, ISBN 978-0-202-36990-7 ( google.de [accessed June 14, 2019]).
^ The Spectator . Westley FC, 1971 ( google.com [accessed June 14, 2019]).
↑ These eight bars, which were repeated once more, ended his solo in the piece Ramblin ' . Haden, in turn, had the riff from a cajun melody . See Sex and Drugs and Rock And Roll by Ian Dury. In: songfacts.com. Accessed August 9, 2019 .
↑ Bert Muirhead: "Stiff - The Story of a Record Label", p. 13, p. 83; Poole / Dorset 1983, ISBN 0-7137-1314-3
↑ http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/apr2000/dury-a11.shtml Obituary for Ian Dury
↑ Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll in the Internet Movie Database (imdb)
↑ Kenneth Blum, Tonia Werner, Stefanie Carnes, Patrick Carnes, Abdalla Bowirrat: Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'N' Roll: Hypothesizing Common Mesolimbic Activation as a Function of Reward Gene Polymorphisms . In: Journal of Psychoactive Drugs . tape 44 , no. 1 , January 2012, ISSN 0279-1072 , p. 38–55 , doi : 10.1080 / 02791072.2012.662112 , PMID 22641964 , PMC 4040958 (free full text) - ( tandfonline.com [accessed August 25, 2018]).

[1] Gerald Handel, Gail G. Whitchurch: The Psychosocial Interior of the Family . Transaction Publishers, 1968, ISBN 978-0-202-36990-7 ( google.de [accessed June 14, 2019]).

[2] The Spectator . Westley FC, 1971 ( google.com [accessed June 14, 2019]).

[3] These eight bars, which were repeated once more, ended his solo in the piece Ramblin ' . Haden, in turn, had the riff from a cajun melody . See Sex and Drugs and Rock And Roll by Ian Dury. In: songfacts.com. Accessed August 9, 2019 .

[BM-4] Bert Muirhead: "Stiff - The Story of a Record Label", p. 13, p. 83; Poole / Dorset 1983, ISBN 0-7137-1314-3

[WS-5] ttp://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/apr2000/dury-a11.shtml Obituary for Ian Dury

[6] Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll in the Internet Movie Database (imdb)

[7] Kenneth Blum, Tonia Werner, Stefanie Carnes, Patrick Carnes, Abdalla Bowirrat: Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'N' Roll: Hypothesizing Common Mesolimbic Activation as a Function of Reward Gene Polymorphisms . In: Journal of Psychoactive Drugs . tape 44 , no. 1 , January 2012, ISSN 0279-1072 , p. 38–55 , doi : 10.1080 / 02791072.2012.662112 , PMID 22641964 , PMC 4040958 (free full text) - ( tandfonline.com [accessed August 25, 2018]).