‘Beetlebum’: The Blur song that upset their producer
Drugs have always been a topic thrown around carelessly in music. As part and parcel of the stereotypical rockstar image, references to illegal substances are an ever-present theme in the music world. But on ‘Beetlebum’, Blur took it too far.
The relationship between drugs and music is exactly what makes the tortured artist trope so dangerous. While it’s getting better as the industry turns towards prioritising mental health and risk management, the ties between substances and the rockstar persona are still tight. It’s a connection that has caused the world to lose too many legends too soon. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Keith Moon, Gram Parsons; who knows what other music we could have gotten if there was better support for stars and less romanticisation of the thing that killed them?
That was precisely what caused a rift between Damon Albarn and their producer, Stephen Street. In the 1990s, as Britpop re-energised the UK’s music scene, cocaine socialism was the way. The bands were wild as Oasis, Blur, Suede and Pulp really took their roles as party bands seriously, enjoying the spoils of their success in the most hedonistic way possible.
But their producer had had enough when the Blur singer started singing about something deeper, darker, and altogether more dangerous. “It’s about drugs basically,” Albarn says of the track ‘Beetlebum’. “I’m not sure what a Beetlebum is. It’s just a word I sang when I played the song to myself. I asked the others if I should change it, but they said no. If it felt right, we decided that we wouldn’t tidy it up like we’ve done in the past.”
He says that now, but in 1997, he knew exactly what the track was about: his new heroin habit. “Chasing the beetle” is a phrase used to allude to smoking drugs. Taken from the shape of a tinfoil package with the rolling beads of heroin scurrying down like bugs, the euphemism is a happy-go-lucky way to talk about one of the most dangerous narcotics of the day.
You’d be forgiven for mistaking ‘Beetlebum’ for a seductive little love song. “And when she lets me slip away / She turns me on and all my violence gone / Nothing is wrong,” could be a beautiful compliment towards the coolest girl Albarn had ever met. Instead, the romanticism of the song is directed towards his newest and dirtiest mistress as he slipped into heroin dependency in the mid to late 1990s.
Their producer, Street, didn’t initially pick up on the track’s meaning, but when he did, he wasn’t happy. “One night, we were out in Reykjavik,” he told Q magazine, “And we’d been having a drink, and Damon piped up about him taking heroin. I was not amused. He was a bit put out that I took umbrage with him about it.”
Street hated the romanticism of the hyper-addictive substance and Albarn’s seeming nonchalance about essentially promoting the drug. “I can remember walking off at a distance because I was a bit pissed off with him,” he continued. “He was kind of gloating about it, and I was saying, ‘I don’t think it’s very fucking clever, basically.’ There was a bit of an atmosphere that night.”
Albarn has always been a conflicting figure when it comes to drugs. “[Heroin] freed me up,” Albarn told Q magazine in 2014, still semi-withholding his defence of his old habit. He continues, “I hate talking about this because of my daughter, my family. But, for me, it was incredibly creative.”
Throughout the band’s late ‘90s albums, what Albarn describes as the “nudge nudge, wink wink innuendo” became increasingly present as he regularly referenced the drug. It seems that beyond Street’s upset, no one ever really stood up to Albarn about his habit or his determination to include it as part of his artistic persona, as he added, “I thought everyone was just being really nice, and not making too much of a deal of it.”
Albarn got out and luckily made it through his addiction alive, well and with his career and talent intact. His tone has changed recently, finally seeing and understanding the view that made his producer so upset in 1997. “It’s a cruel, cruel thing,” he told The Guardian. “[Heroin] does turn you into a very isolated person, and ultimately, anything that you are truly dependent on is not good.”
