WCSX Classic Cuts : Love Is the Drug
WCSX Classic Cuts
Roxy Music: “Love Is the Drug”
The Hook: Singer Bryan Ferry considers it almost a prototype rap record, “virtually spoken rhythmically rather than sung.”
Album: Siren
Year: 1975
Writers: Bryan Ferry and Andy MacKay
Stats: Peaked at number-30 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Background: “Love Is the Drug,” from Roxy Music’s fifth album, Siren, was not only a popular song on rock radio, but their first single to chart in the U.S. Singer Bryan Ferry recalls how it came about.
Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry on “Love Is the Drug.” OC:…rather nice. :28
“It started off as a really slow almost church anthem dirge type of thing. I sort of tarted it up a bit and it became quite sprightly. The others would never know what I was going to sing and usually they’d go away — I’d prefer to be just with a producer and engineer and I remember them being suitably knocked out when I did it. To me, it was like a prototype rap record, it was virtually spoken rhythmically, rather than sung. While the band was away Chris Thomas and me, we did this sound effects thing – a car and walking up a gravel path. It was rather nice.”