Nowhere in the lyrics of Queens of the Stone Age’s song “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer” will you find the words “feel”, “good”, “hit”, “of”, “the”, or “summer”. What you will find is some stellar riffage courtesy of Josh Homme, and the following words, and only these words repeated for three minutes, almost like a mantra…

Nicotine

Valium

Vicodin

Marijuana

Ecstasy

Alcohol

C-C-C-C-COCAINE????

It’s fucking silly (for what it’s worth, it was supposed to be silly), but it’s also catchy as hell. Sometimes the best songs are the simplest.

Here’s my favorite anecdote about “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer”, which just proves that Josh Homme is a giant (literally, giant…he’s a tall mofo) troll.

(from Wikipedia, although I’ve seen this story many other places, too). the band used the track as the opener for what was intended to be a six-song gig at an undisclosed Los Angeles rehab clinic.

So, to give some personal insight to these lyrics, I now present…my own experiences with these seven substances.

Nicotine; Smoked cigarettes for like fifteen years. Quit-cold turkey- in my early thirties, usually have a “security pack” in the apartment in the event I suddenly get the urge again, although I’ve smoked less than a pack of cigarettes total in the last ten years. I had a brief “relapse” earlier this year (lasted maybe a week), but I’ve more of less left my smoking habit way in the past.

Valium: Never done it. I’ve been on pain pills twice in my life. Once when I had my wisdom teeth taken out (all four at the same time) and they had to break a bone in my jaw to remove one. I was prescribed hydrocodone, which strangely turned me into some kind of Microsoft savant. I did my first PowerPoint presentation on hydrocodone and it was glorious. I don’t remember why I was prescribed pain pills the second time (must have been another dental thing because just about every surgery I’ve ever had has been on my mouth), but I remember using them once, putting them away, then going through a period of depression, remembering I had the pills, and using them just to sleep the rest of the day away.

Vicodin: See above.

Marijuana: I enjoy pot. I don’t consume it especially often (I think I’ve gotten stoned once in all of 2019 so far), but I like it.

Ecstasy: Even as a club kid, I stayed away from that shit.

Alcohol: Last night, I had about a glass and a half of champagne. It’s the most alcohol I’ve consumed in more than 90 days. Actually, it’s the only alcohol I’ve consumed in the last 90 days beyond a sip of something my sister was drinking that was like a chocolate licqeur and in that case I was way more worried about my blood sugar spiking than I was about alcohol . At any rate, I happen to be pretty fond of whiskey, but I do think I hit a point towards the end of the last year when it was starting to get a bit much and it was also affecting my depression in a pretty gnarly fashion. So I decided to chill for a bit with the drinking. Especially as I was starting on new psychotic meds (and alcohol famously does not allow head meds to function properly). It’s been good. I don’t totally miss it, and it’s not like I’m abstaining permanently. Just needed to get to a place where I wasn’t borderline dependent on it. Alcohol, like everything else, is great in moderation.

C-C-C-C-COCAINE????: I grew up in the ’80s, when there were “Just Say No” messages all over the place, people were OD’ing left and right, and crack was the scourge of the Black community. Never had the urge to do coke (although I’m reasonably sure that in my younger days, I have been in a room while crack was being smoked). Also, I work in the music business. I’m willing to guess that a solid number of people I know have done coke at least once. You do you, I guess. Not for me.

And this piece now has more than 100x as many words as the song I’m writing about does. I’m going to shut up now.