Poison

Album: Bomber (1979)
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Songfacts®:

  • Not to be confused with any other song of the same title, this "Poison" may sound like a run-of-the-mill thrash metal track but it is actually a very personal one. Although a group composition, the lyrics are clearly attributable to frontman Lemmy. The third verse is most emphatic:

    My father, he used to be a preacher,
    Never taught me nothing but scorn,
    If I ever catch him on the street, yeah,
    I'll make him wish he'd never been born,
    He was poison,
    I know that he poisoned my life,
    He was poison,
    I wish my mother wasn't his wife, no!


    Lemmy's father was indeed a preacher, a Royal Air Force chaplain. He walked out on his wife, Lemmy's mother, when the boy was just three months old. In a 2007 interview with Nathan Bevan, he said he met his father at the age of 21, and was given the advice that he should become a travelling salesman.

    This meeting was somewhat reminiscent of Phil Lynott's meeting with his father, but while the resulting Lynott song "Parisienne Walkways" is enigmatic, "Poison" is understandably venomous. It is also a double entendre, the other poison being his daily pack and a half of cigarettes and bottle of Jack Daniel's. As he told Bevan: "The doctors said my blood was far too toxic for other humans."
  • Running to 2 minutes 54 seconds, "Poison" is the 5th track on the 1979 Bomber album. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2

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