The Orgies ( 1975 - 80 )

I was interested in kinky sex.
Sex and drugs took music's place
in my life then. Getting it on in bed
with more than one woman; sometimes,
watching them freak out on themselves.
I enjoyed it. No point in denyin' that.
It gave me a thrill. I was into thrills.

Now, I know a lot of people think
I was crazy and hated women.
They think I abused these fine bitches,
but I didn't. I was just doin'
what a lot of guys would love to do 
greasin' my pole 'n fine flared nose
on every woman I could take home.

I didn't hate women; I loved them 
probably too much. And they loved
fuckin' and suckin' me. I loved
bein' up to my nuts in all of them,
but I was so stone cold after a while
all the T & A 'n cocaine froze my brain
and I was hallucinatin' and still in pain.

Arthritis, hip surgery, bad ankles
from '69 that crazy motherfucker
who shot me for some sillyass reason
I don't understand, and, man,
I was a goddamn cripple, but I 
had my pride. I couldn't travel:
I didn't like to be seen in no rockin' chair.

I sat at Osaka and put out four
badass sides of live stuff, then had enough.
I couldn't concentrate for the damn pain.
Still, I knew I'd be back in my
own sweet time; I'd surprise everyone.
I was pretty fucked up, but I wasn't
hurtin' nobody else, and I ain't guilty now.

Gregory was callin' himself Rahman by then
and my relationship with him was sad.
He'd get himself arrested, have accidents,
and get into all sorts of shit and I 
know he loved me and wanted to be like me,
but I was no kind of father to him.
I never was no kind of father to my kids.


When I didn't have coke my temper was short
and things would just get on my nerves,
I couldn't handle that. I didn't listen to any music.
I would snort coke, get tired of that,
then take a sleeping pill so I could sleep,
but I didn't want to sleep and took to
prowlin' the streets like a damn vampire.

Bein' a Gemini, I was already two people,
but back then I was four: two people on coke;
two off. Two with consciences; two without.
I'd be up for four days, would hallucinate
and do weird shit. The maid stayed away.
My thoughts, like roaches, skittered from
dirty dishes to the dirty dog. I was a mad mo' fugger.

Then Cicely brought me back from the dead.
Started lookin' in on me, feedin' me vegetables
and vitamins 'n shit.ÊI tapered off the snow,
the sleeping pills; switched from cognac
to rum and coke. Eventually, even the Heinekens
and smoking would go. She wouldn't kiss no compost
and I had strong willpower. I kicked out the bitches.

I kicked the bitches out, and my senses kicked in.
George Butler, a cat who'd come from Blue Note
to Columbia started comin' around.
He was a conservative, button-down guy 
a laid-back academic with PhD,
and he started goading me to get back
in the studio to record. He kept at me.

My sister's boy, Vincent, came to visit
me in New York, and he'd bash around
on a set of skins I gave him when he was seven.
He kept askin' me questions. That got me
thinkin' about makin' music again too.
I knew I had lost my embouchure, but got it back,
and early in 1980, I finally gave George a call.

I had been livin' for six years in sin
according to some. But I didn't see it that way.
The coke increased my sex drive and I drove
some wicked roads at pretty high speeds
to get where I was going, but, eventually, I
got bored with that too. Funny, how it's always
boredom that gets a man to take hold of the wheel.