YouTube Clip of the Week: John Lennon “Cold Turkey”
Behold: before there was Peter Gabriel to put words to wordless feelings, there was John Lennon (1940 - 80). It came to pass that one day John Lennon doth wrote a song called “Cold Turkey”, which went on about the pain and lamentations of heroin withdrawal.
And it was good.
But, Seriously
One of the reasons I like this song so much is that I can relate — sorta. I’ve never done heroin (not that I know of, anyway) but I have been accused of faking about how bad I feel when suffering from migraine pain. I’ve been accussed of faking so much that when I get a migraine, I automatically hear in my head, “You’re faking it.”
When I was homeless in England, I met a lot of drug users, some of which I sat right next to as they were “clucking” (going through withdrawal pains). If someone hadn’t told me that they were clucking, I never would have known. I knew something was wrong, as they were quiet and still and sometimes kept clenching their jaws and slightly rocking back and forth, but I wouldn’t have guessed that they were going through the agony of heroin withdrawal. It just doesn’t look that dramatic (and when it does, they usually try to not appear in public.)
Anyone who goes through pain and doesn’t get any sympathy for it can relate to “Cold Turkey.” Although I do not get cluster headaches, I imagine the pain is like the pain described in “Cold Turkey”. If someone wonders what migraine or cluster headache pain is like, play them this clip. This is from a 1972 benefit performance in New York City. Thanks goes out to “Corportate Tube” (whoever you are) for putting this up. Enjoy.
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