Some things in the song are obvious. Cooking up the medicine has to do with cooking up drugs. The man in a trenchcoat is a cop who wants to be bribed. Get sick get well refers to getting high and withdrawal.The new friend he looks for is a new dealer who wants more money than you've got. Maggie is running in to tell them that the cops are bugging the bed as well as the phones and that the DA has ordered an increase in busts.
In the first part of the lyrics, this is a song about the metaphorical subterranean life in NYC in the early 60's, probably in what is today, fancy shmancy Noho and nolita and parts of the lower east side and east village, but was a slum filled with beats, drug addicts, hookers, con men, crooked cops and the very poor people they prey on.
The second part describes what someone was "supposed to do" to do the right thing and survive but ...
Some things in the song are obvious. Cooking up the medicine has to do with cooking up drugs. The man in a trenchcoat is a cop who wants to be bribed. Get sick get well refers to getting high and withdrawal.The new friend he looks for is a new dealer who wants more money than you've got. Maggie is running in to tell them that the cops are bugging the bed as well as the phones and that the DA has ordered an increase in busts.
In the first part of the lyrics, this is a song about the metaphorical subterranean life in NYC in the early 60's, probably in what is today, fancy shmancy Noho and nolita and parts of the lower east side and east village, but was a slum filled with beats, drug addicts, hookers, con men, crooked cops and the very poor people they prey on.
The second part describes what someone was "supposed to do" to do the right thing and survive but ...