“There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences.”

    – Robert Ingersoll

This week, Helen is looking for a song that deals with ‘consequences’, whether good or bad. As she rightly points out, lots of songs are, in one way or another, about some consequence of an earlier action, as any half-way competent sophist could easily argue. Even ‘Yesterday’ is about consequences.

But this song by Neil Young deals with consequences in a much more straightforward way. And these are unequivocally bad.

I caught you knockin’
at my cellar door
I love you, baby,
can I have some more
Ooh, ooh, the damage done.

I hit the city and
I lost my band
I watched the needle
take another man
Gone, gone, the damage done.

I sing the song
because I love the man
I know that some
of you don’t understand
Milk-blood
to keep from running out.

I’ve seen the needle
and the damage done
A little part of it in everyone
But every junkie’s
like a settin’ sun.

Lyrics by Neil Young

Song Lyric Sunday 30 April 2017