Love Potion #9
for release 12-06-05
Washington D.C.
Things get old. They wear out. It's a fact of nature. All machines from cars to dishwashers to dildos wear out. Even the human machine and love wear out. Everything is subject to depreciation. Arousal inevitably succumbs to flaccidity, fascination to indifference. Even an erection loses its charm after about four hours.
Now the New York Times tells us that the blush is off the rose with respect to sales of what the drug companies like to call treatment for 'erectile dysfunction' and the Times calls 'impotence medicines' and what people on the street call 'stay hard pills.' New prescriptions for these medications are down by ten percent on the peter meter from last year.
I'm familiar with the names of these drugs. You see, it's always been my dream to have a big band. I'm talking Count Basie here, with the horn sections sitting behind elegant music stands in white suits and three gorgeous mulatto back-up singers in skimpy dresses and sparkles on their shoulders. The singers would be named Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. I would call them the Rod Squad.
Even though the sales of these drugs (which are designed for use by men but are given feminine sounding names) are, shall we say, a little limp compared with last year, it's still a multi-billion dollar bonanza for Big Pharm. We've all seen endless advertisements on the evening news extolling the virtues of these Superman Drugs featuring voluptuous, dimpled, lubricated and willing wives rolling their eyes in anticipatory rapture. Does this strike anyone as sexist?
I'm sure that the dope companies are falling all over themselves trying to find a feminine counterpart for Viagra, something like the fabled Spanish Fly. They could call it Brutus or Magnum or Adonis. You know, something masculine. They could double the size of their market. I can only imagine the TV ads.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no true aphrodisiac. Sure, there are drugs and liquors that make the recipient less inhibited and discriminating and more compliant, but unconsciousness does not constitute aphrodisia. If the drug companies could patent a pill that would make a woman (or a man) sexually aroused, it would be a gold mine, especially if it was tasteless and instantly soluble in scotch.
The closest substance to an aphrodisiac that I have ever experienced is LSD. That's because acid doesn't operate on the genitals, it goes to the primary sexual organ, the mind. Frank Zappa was right, it's the nastiest part of your body.
From time immemorial it has been the venue of witch doctors and snake oil salesmen to sell potions which would allegedly stimulate desire or enhance potency. The placebo effect comes in handy here.
Oh, The Poet's Eye would love to see a pill that would renew young love and rekindle old passions and make either sex instantly in the mood for amore. I would gladly slip this potion into your glass.
Love Potion Number Nine
I told her that I was a flop with chicks
I'd been this way since 1956
She looked at my palm and she made a magic sign
She said "What you need is Love Potion Number Nine"
She bent down and turned around and gave me a wink
She said "I'm gonna make it up right here in the sink"
It smelled like turpentine, it looked like India Ink*
I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink
I didn't know if it was day or night
I started kissin' everything in sight
But when I kissed a cop down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine
He broke my little bottle of "Love Potion Number Nine"
– Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
