It's with this sample of a monologue from William S. Burroughs (who also features prominently in the clip) that Ministry's "Just One Fix" opens, a collaborative effort with the aforementioned spoken word poet/social critic that was released in 1992 on Ministry's most successful album "Psalm69: The way to succeed and the way to suck eggs."
While most people seem to think the track is about heroin use, I've always thought it was an allegory, comparing addictive drug use to out of control consumerism. On the CD single, an alternate mix featuring more of William S. Burroughs spoken word follows the original track. He talks about a coming alien invasion where the invaders want basically everything we have, comparing our situation to that of the Native Americans at the time of frontier settlement. He's basically saying that successive ways of living destroy the cultures and traditions that came before them and the modern, consumerism driven lifestyles enjoyed by more developed countries is the latest example. He ends the monologue with "cut word lines, cut music lines, smash the control images, smash the control machines."I do think most Ministry fans would disagree with me, but I believe the track really is about the greater need for controlling the urge to spend money, not to consume mindlessly, to control the craving for "just one fix."
Of course, William S Burroughs was widely known to be addicted to opiates, so maybe the song really is just about shooting up heroin after all.
Ahhhh Ministry.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!