I Love What Cocaine Has Done for Me

Sly Stone regularly carried a violin case filled with the drug and Ozzy Osbourne snorted a line of ants while on cocaine.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Afraid Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page cursed him, David Bowie began storing his urine in his fridge. 

It was 1975 and both men were fascinated with occultist Aleister Crowley, with Page owning Crowley’s former home. Bowie believed home ownership gave Page an advantage with the dark arts, which fed into his paranoia. He strongly believed wizards would steal his urine and use it to enchant him.

Cocaine nourished Bowie during this time. He subsidized his daily powdery diet with red and green peppers, milk and four packs of the French cigarettes, Gitanes. The unsustainable diet contributed to regular cocaine-triggered psychosis episodes. Side effects are similar to those of schizophrenia, particularly a distorted reality. 

Bowie was also obsessively writing and recording music alongside his urine bottles, composing works that eventually made up Station to Station, an album many fans and critics point to as Bowie’s best. 

As much as cocaine can fuel a masterpiece, it is a double-edged sword. During the mid-’70s, Bowie developed a persona, the Thin Whtie Duke. The character was virtually emotionless, save for his obsessions with fascism and the occult. Bowie made alarming statements in interviews, making fans wonder how much of his true self he threw into his personas. 

In 2014, I saw Bowie’s cocaine spoon as part of the David Bowie Is traveling exhibition. It’s the piece that stuck out the most to me out of hundreds, even thousands, of Bowie memorabilia. I thought more deeply about my favorite artist’s relationship with drugs and art. Showcasing Bowie’s cocaine spoon in an exhibition dedicated to his life solidifies cocaine’s role in Bowie’s artistry. 

I have yet to touch cocaine. I say ‘yet’ because I plan on leaning into it if I’m fortunate enough to hit 75 years. Maybe earlier the way this election is headed. Anyway, it is a conscious choice. Addiction is in my family history and I know my personality has addictive aspects, like my 25-year obsession with Bowie.

Still, cocaine’s allure among artists fascinates me. Sly Stone regularly carried a violin case filled with the drug and Ozzy Osbourne snorted a line of ants while on cocaine. In the 1978 documentary, The Last Waltz, special effects had to edit out visible cocaine from Neil Young’s nose. Flava Flav admitted to spending up to $2,600 on cocaine a day and Mick Fleetwood once shared Fleetwood Mac consumed seven miles of cocaine over the course of the band’s career. The stories are endless.

So this week, we’re going to do a little research, connect some dots and find out why cocaine and music go hand in hand—and how I’ve greatly benefitted from it all.

Peanut butter and jelly, music and cocaine 

I know cocaine has extreme risks. It disrupts communication between brain networks, accelerates aging and puts users at an elevated risk of developing psychotic disorders. (Hey Bowie.)

Still, cocaine and music have an inseparable bond.

There is not much research connecting music with cocaine, let alone the drug’s influence on artistry in general. There are, however, a handful of studies that show unique connections that are worth exploring.  

The two-year lag

One research group was curious about music’s connection to cocaine. They wanted to see if song lyrics could signal epidemiological trends, so they analyzed the lyrics from 5,955 songs and found some patterns.

“Cocaine mentions in song lyrics were stable from 2000 to 2010 then increased by 190% from 2010 to 2017,” the study found.

Additionally, the researchers compared cocaine mortality rates in the same date range and discovered a striking trend. 

Looking deeper into the data, the study found a two-year lag time between increased cocaine references in lyrics and cocaine mortality. 

“Musical trends that depict cocaine in lyrics may be an early signal of a rising interest and use of cocaine in the same year. The lag-time period of 2 years between cocaine lyrics and cocaine mortality may indicate that there is an incubation period of 2 years between addiction and fatality.”

Music itself is a drug 

The nucleus accumbens releases dopamine and is the brain’s section that seeks pleasure and reward. Similarly, how and what we hear functions as both a warning and reward system. To our bodies, music accesses the pleasure and reward centers as much as our buddy cocaine. 

“Music can be a drug — a very addictive drug because it’s also acting on the same part of the brain as illegal drugs,” Neuroscientist Kiminobu Sugaya said in a study. “Music increases dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, similar to cocaine.”

Our motivation to turn on our favorite song, playlist or artist can also serve as a coping mechanism, which we’ve discussed here before.

According to a 2024 study, “...main motives for engaging in individual music listening activities are somewhat similar to those that support psy-choactive substance use and relate to coping, pleasure, reward and aesthetics.”

My music obsession is starting to make some sense now.

Via University of Central Florida

Right-brained and left-brained individuals experience music differently 

Music significantly affects brain function, to the point where music itself can become a drug. The brain lights up when someone listens to a song with deep, personal connections. Your brain’s hemispheres are also responsible for how you interpret music. 

“We use the language center to appreciate music, which spans both sides of the brain, though language and words are interpreted in the left hemisphere while music and sounds are interpreted in the right hemisphere,” Yonetani said.

I am detrimentally right-brained, so it makes sense that my music preferences include loud, crashing guitar riffs and bpms out the wazoo. There are many songs I’ve loved for years without truly knowing the meaning behind them. For the longest time, I thought I wasn’t as intellectual as other music lovers. It just turns out our brains are different. 

The part of the brain someone uses is also a good indicator of whether or not they are a professional musician. 

“Professional musicians use the occipital cortex, which is the visual cortex, when they listen to music, while laypersons, like me, use the temporal lobe — the auditory and language center. This suggests that [musicians] might visualize a music score when they are listening to music,” Sugaya said.

Research also shows that professional musicians are also stronger communicators, as a result of how music plays a part in the brain. 

Cocaine isn’t a rock and roll drug

Cocaine and music is a bond that crosses all genres, not just limited to rock and roll. In fact, it’s the country genre that references drugs the most in lyrics—marijuana is referenced the most, with cocaine coming in second. There is even a genre that prefers cocaine the most, and it’s still not rock and roll; it's folk. 

Even though country is comfy with cocaine, not all genre members support artists using the drug. While researching, I found one pro-drug country artist who drew a hard line when it came to cocaine. 

“I have one firm rule with the band and the crew regarding cocaine: if you’re wired, you’re fired,” Willie Nelson said in his autobiography, Willie. 

I love what cocaine has done for me

Charli xcx released her critically and commercially successful album, brat, this month. It’s like if adrenaline were converted to music form, and cocaine is one of many topics that give the album its monumental lift.

“It’s an unabashed celebration of drug-infused sticky floor catharsis,” Johnny Walfisz wrote in their brat review.

Lyrics like “Shall we do a little key? Shall we do a little line?” (“365”) don’t really leave much to the imagination, either. 

It’s proof the drug is just as relevant today as it was in Bowie’s heyday. Lana Del Rey is an example of another modern artist who weaves cocaine into their craft. Her elusive coke necklace stylized as a rosary is notorious across the fandom.  

In 2022, hip-hop artist Pusha T incorporated a cocaine reference in an Arby’s jingle. Meant as a McDonald’s diss track (or as close to a diss track as capitalism can get), the reference came at the end:

If you know me and you know me well/Our fish is gonna tip that scale 

If you don’t know Pusha T, he is notorious for incorporating cocaine into his songs. So much so that Variety writer Kyle Eustice criticized Pusha T’s 2022 album, It’s Almost Dry, for rapping about cocaine too much.

“Four years after releasing “Daytona,” Pusha T has resurfaced with “It’s Almost Dry,” a 12-song collection of coke raps… and not much else,” they wrote.

Eustice may not settle for anything less than profound artistic growth, but I will. Because I love It’s Almost Dry. I love Rumours, I love “White Lines,” I love Station to Station and I especially liked when Elton John told Lily Allen “I could still snort you under the table.” 

Cocaine is a helluva drug but it has created some of music’s most iconic moments.

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