Can Music Soothe the Drug Beast?

Danny Whitten’s heroin-induced death in 1972 was the inspiration for Neil Young’s lament “The Needle and the Damage Done.”

Ralph Molina, who played in bands with Whitten for nine years before his death, says Young still performs the song about the Crazy Horse singer-guitarist every night during a solo-acoustic sequence. If anything, “Needle” and “Tonight’s the Night,” another song that grew out of Young’s grief over Whitten’s death (and that of Bruce Berry, a road-crew member who died, also drug-related, in 1973), have gained relevance in the ‘90s as lower prices and greater purity have made heroin more available, potent and destructive than it was in the early ‘70s.

With all that damage still being done, are Young’s classic drug-warning songs a waste of breath? Only if you have unrealistic expectations of music’s practical impact, Molina said.

“You write a song, it’s not like you’re going to change the world. I was into drugs, like most of us. Fortunately, I was able to stop on my own. I never got into it the way Danny did. I don’t think a song is going to change people’s feelings. If a person is depressed and someone says, ‘Try this,’ a song isn’t going to stop you.”