Songoftheday 6/13/13 - One that won't make me nervous wondering what to do, One that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you when I'm alone with you...

Huey Lewis & The News - "I Want A New Drug"
from the album Sports (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's Song of the Day is by San Franciscan pop-rock kings Huey Lewis & The News, who closed out 1983 with a new album release which would go on to be their biggest, Sports, and their second top-10 single with "Heart & Soul". The follow-up to that single would be the happy-face addiction of "I Want A New Drug", written by Lewis (with a little help from guitarist Chris Hayes) and produced by the band. The video has Lewis hurrying up to get to a concert...

"I Want A New Drug" became their biggest hit up to that time, reaching the top-10 on the pop and rock charts in March of 1984, while also topping the dance club chart in Billboard magazine. It also made the top-10 in Canada and New Zealand.

It also brought the first accepted use of "Drug" in a rock song in mainstream America...

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Four years later, traditional country act Asleep At The Wheel released a fiddlin' version of the song..

Alt-rock singer Glen Phillips of Toad The Wet Sprocket also covered "I Want A New Drug" in 2006...

...

also,Weird Al Yankovic parodied the song as "I Want A New Duck"..

Here's Huey and the News live in 1985...

...again in 1989...

...and most recently on the Jimmy Kimmel Show from last month...

As a coda....Huey Lewis sued Ray Parker Jr. for cribbing "I Want A New Drug"'s groove for his #1 hit "Ghostbusters", which was settled out of court. Make your decision yourself..

Up Tomorrow: Another Maccer goes solo...