Needle of Death
His stark song about a friend's death from heroin, and the best known of his own compositions.
Bert Jansch, from Bert Jansch (1965)
- Written by
- Bert Jansch
- Released
- 1965
- Length
- 3:20
- Album
- Bert Jansch
Needle of Death is a stark anti-drugs song on Bert Jansch, written after a friend died of an overdose. The friend was the folk singer Buck Polly, and the song became Jansch's best known. The picking is a simple Travis style, but several chords carry an added ninth that sits in the middle of the arpeggio rather than on top, which gives the sound a lumpiness.
Neil Young said in 1992 that he wrote the melody of Ambulance Blues by styling its guitar part completely on Needle of Death. A Guardian writer called Young's own The Needle and the Damage Done a poignant postscript to it, and described Jansch's song as an unflinching chronicle of addiction that has become something of a folk standard. Jansch recorded it again for L.A. Turnaround in 1974.
More songs by Bert Jansch
Blackwaterside, Angie, Do You Hear Me Now?
Sources
- Bert Jansch (album), Wikipedia
- Neil Young brings Bert Jansch on the road, American Songwriter (2010)
- Bert Jansch: a modest man with an immodest talent, The Guardian (2011-10-06)
- Bert Jansch, Wikipedia
- L.A. Turnaround, Wikipedia