Opiated

This is a song about a guy who kills himself, leaving a friend behind.

Each verse contains the threat of suicide in its final lines: "if his bride didn't like it, St. Peter wouldn't mind" in the first, and "it was see if you like it, or see you up there" in the second. Suicide, rather than murder, because it's his new blue suit that St. Peter might like, rather than anything of his bride's. He's "addicted to approval," and if it's withdrawn, he's going to off himself.

Before he offs himself, he gets drunk. That ain't two fifths of gasoline in that bottle; the following line is slyly lifted from a Grateful Dead song, "Brown-Eyed Women," which is about a bootlegger. As the Dead have it, "the bottle was dusty, but the liquor was clean." Booze is fuel to his suicidal impulse -- the snake doesn't just dream up the poison in his head.

The singer is left behind, and if not actually opiated, that's how he feels: numb. Maybe he couldn't have stopped the guy from offing himself. On the other hand, maybe he could have waited for help.

Escape is at Hand for the Travellin' Man has another, not dissimilar, take on a friend's suicide.