Songs about chemicals by dudes who lost fingers.

Because nobody gives a good goddamn about Drake's knee, especially me. And yet look, even in the safe, warm bosom of HeightFiveSeven I done went and mentioned it. Plus I posted a pic. Oh dear. Why do I do the things I do.

Because a real injury in music is one that somehow affects your ability to play your music.

Because the synapses in my brain fire away about weird topics inspired by my record collection, oddly travel along the pathway from the Jerry Garcia section to the Sixto Rodriguez section to the Tony Iommi section, and look for the commonalities.

Because I pretend like life is one big episode of Music Nerd Jeopardy!

And 'cause neither Malice nor Pusha T have sustained injuries to their fingers thus far.




Tony Iommi. The tips of his middle and ring finger on his right hand went bye bye when, as a poor young man from an industrial English town, he was satisfying his important "working in a factory" life-stages requirement (see Every Male Musician From the British Empire from 1947 on). He plays guitar left-handed, but his fretting hand was injured and I'm pretty sure that's a bad thing if you're a guitar player. He surmounted this and went on to invent music that has pleased the young Caucasoid male to this very day.

Ask me more about this one later. I'm more Sabbath than you know what to do with.


Cringe-tastic lyrics that I can forgive due to Iommi's guitar, Ozzy's voice (duh), and the "Rhymin and Stealin" connection.


Black Sabbath - "Sweet Leaf"

mp3.





Jerry Garcia. His right middle finger got chopped off (accidentally) by his brother. With an axe.


"Truckin" at the Fillmore East, 09/20/70

mp3.





Rodriguez. When I found Cold Fact on vinyl I was extra extra obnoxious with glee. But still adorable.

“‘I have a sloppy style of playing guitar. A percussive style. Unique in fact.’

Then he raises his left hand to show me why. Half his middle finger is missing. ‘I lost it in an industrial accident when I was 21 and within two weeks I was playing again,’ he says, adding, as he often does, another favourite aphorism:

‘He conquers who conquers himself.’”


A song about your pharmacist that's not by NWA, Curtis Mayfield, Steppenwolf, Motley Crue, or any rapper from the states of Georgia, Florida, Texas, or Virginia.
Sugar man, you're the answer/That makes my questions disappear.


Rodriguez - "Sugar Man"

mp3.



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