The audience for the song is the young adults of the time.
When referencing the drugs that the author sings about he uses the slang words used by kids and other people who either use the drugs or just know about the younger culture and even those adults who are still using (or had used in the past).
Words used:
Pot- marijuana
Blow-Cocaine
Coke-Cocaine
Smack-Heroine
Junkie-Heroine Addict
I never hear elderlies say these types of things so it must be directed toward the younger audience. And even though people into their thirties know what these terms mean, they dont use them in their everyday langauge.
And the type of behavior, a life lead by drugs and crime, is seen as a deviation from societal norms (which is anti-social) and this type of behavior is mainly associated with juvenile delinquency.
He is also making a connection to the younger generation in the third stanza (begins with "And at home..."). Because he is talking about him being at home and he mentions his sister. I think of a family environment which the young people are still closley reminded of even into college because they have closer ties with the family seeing as how they havent "grown up" enough yet and begun their own adult disfunctional lives.
redue of 1st verse translation
15 years ago
3 comments:
I don't know if using drug slang in conversation has as much to do with age as with lifestyle. A fifty year old cop will definitely know all the slang for all the drugs and use it when questioning people whom he thinks communicate best in that type of language. I can think of other circumstances that the "elderlies" would know and use these terms as drug use knows no age limit -- watch one of those reality rehab shows to prove that one -- but the "older set" tends not to have lives that revolve around drugs and therefore drug slang as much because when your life revolves around drugs to the extent where they're in most of your conversations then you probably won't live to become one of the "elderlies."
Interesting posts so far. But one comment, I think you may need to draw stronger connections than slang to make a parallel in the song to youth only. I work for a drug rehab and support group, and some of the people in there are 25 years old and up. They all do or did drugs, and they all use slang. I think that a life lead by drugs and crime is also very prominent in adults, not simply juvenile delinquency. As he makes all these connections to the younger generation, are you sure the song isn't about simply being a youth in this type of generation, not the transitions to adulthood?
Interesting, however I have to agree with the previous comments about the age to slang relationship because my father is almost fifty and his teen or youth years were during the late 60's and 70's which were big drug years, so he is pretty familiar with the different slang terms. Considering that he lived in a time were drugs were becoming more used he knows some slang that i haven't even heard of.
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