The Perfect Drug

The more I give to you the more I die and I want you! These lyrics perfectly embody the

struggles that both of these songs portray. Drug addiction of any type is an abrasive, gripping

tragedy that people all over the world battle with everyday. Both versions of this song look at

drug addiction and the hold it has on a person. The main point of the original song was Trent

Reznor and his grapple with alcoholism, the second song was made to highlight heroin abuse as

well as raise awareness of the drug's dangers.

In the original song there is an interesting sonic setup. The video shows a shot of Trent

Reznor and the rest of the band in a room with several different classical era instruments. The

band is playing what looks like a lute of some sort, a viola, and a violin in a pizzicato fashion,

plucking the strings and playing the main melody. There is also what I believe are drum samples

playing the rhythm. The drums are fast, chaotic, and peaking which means that they are too loud

in the mix causing the audio to distort heavily creating a layer of noise. In the first pre-chorus

they use all of this to build, along with a heavy synth sound, to the chorus where they use the

regular instruments, guitar, bass, and real drums, to shift the song into a more digestible sound.

They used these abstract textures to create a real sense of anxiety and tension in the music.

The video opens with a shot of the main character (lead singer Trent Reznor) and

presumably one of his children looking into a Crystal ball. Crystal balls are normally used to see

the future, however they only see their reflections. I believe this is trying to say that the future

holds problems that are actually within themselves. The video begins showing us the rest of the

building little by little. It is a large gothic mansion with giant windows, dark but floral wallpaper,

thick red drapes, big mirrors with fancy borders, and a bear skin rug. There is also a large 5-6

pointed star that Reznor can be seen sitting in front of. The star shoots sparks at Reznor’s head
showing us his electrifying inner turmoil. The outside of the mansion has rolling hills, not

flowing but jagged, littered with obelisks, a giant severed hand, a tea pot looking thing with a

body laying behind it, and a bush maze that Reznor is seen running through. The obelisks are

both erect and fallen almost as to signify that there has been a sort of downfall. The sky is Dark,

stormy, and unsettling.

The perfect drug in this video is alcohol or more precisely absinthe, a very potent spirit.

Reznor in many scenes is either drinking straight from a bottle, or next to empty bottles. There

are also scenes of Reznor in a pool thrashing signifying his descent into addiction. He attempts to

fight but there is only his violent struggle against alcoholism. The Obelisks that have begun to

fall could represent the fact he is losing this battle as they are often symbols of power and here

they have crumbled. The child we saw in the beginning is seen standing on the large severed

hand in a few different shots. This is to show that not only does alcoholism have a large impact

on the individual, but the rest of their family as well. The effects of abuse have trickled down and

are even impacting his kin. The emotional appeal to pathos is personified through the human

struggle with the chemical vice of alcoholism. I think this song is directed towards an audience

of people who have struggled through this type of affliction, whether as an individual, or as a

person affected by another individual's struggle.

The second song is not as soncily experimental as the first. It is a grass roots deathcore

song. There are down tuned 7 string guitars, heavy double bass kick drums, screamed vocals, and

an overall explosive sound that this genre creates. I think this was the perfect style to cover this

song with because of its vicreal nature. The sounds the band creates with these instruments is

hard hitting and painful. This is what makes the message and video a more potent display of

pain.
 The second video it's made very clear what drug they are talking about. The video is a

compilation of graphic heroin use from almost all imaginable movies and shows. The shots are

paced in a very specific manner. The beginning of the video is the preparation of the drug.

People are seen heating spoons and gathering needles. During the pre-chorus the needles are

being filled as the song chants "and I want you". During the second chorus the drug is injected.

This leads us into the breakdown. In true metal fashion the breakdown is what the song has been

leading to, it's the part that hits the hardest and drives home the main idea. The shots pan back

and forth between people injecting and collapsing with the sensation of the perverse pleasure.

This is to signify the need heroin creates and its hold on users. The breakdown drives the feeling

of doom into the listener. The bridge of this song is much slower compared to the rest of the

song. The lyrics “without you, without you everything falls apart”, “take me with you”, and

“without you it's not as much fun to pick up the pieces” are softly sung creating a haunting,

looming, picture of addiction. The shots pan between all the now fulfilled drug addicts before

cutting to a scene of a lady falling through the sky. The end of the video depicts a woman taking

her own life after using the drug. The entire process of her death is captured from beginning to

end as she takes the drug, clambers her way to a window, and leaps. Often in metal horrible

tragedies are made into painfully beautiful art, this is no exception. I think this song was covered

to raise awareness of heroin's dangers and to try to scare people away from its use. I think they

did that by showing the deeply disturbing graphic use as well as the depiction of scuicide. The

effect heroin has on its users is mortifyingly evident in the video and should scare away anybody

from the drug.

This song is also an appeal to pathos. With the hard hitting guitars, drums and vocals, it's

easy to feel the crushing weight of heroin addiction. The band is able to capture the dark nature
of addiction with their instruments. As an appeal to pathos I think this song was made for

anybody who will heed their warning. Heroin is a terrible trap that leads its users to an

unbearable rock bottom.

 Work cited

Fit For An Autopsy, “The Perfect Drug.” YouTube, YouTube, 20 Nov. 2017,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caVnuIm5ZGQ. Accessed 13 Feb. 2022.

NineInchNailsVEVO, director. The Perfect Drug. YouTube, YouTube, 23 Apr. 2019,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn3j6-yQKWQ. Accessed 13 Feb. 2022.