‘I Want a New Drug’ is a song by American rock band Huey Lewis and the News from their third album Sports. It is its second single, following the top-ten hit ‘Heart and Soul’ in January 1984. The single reached number six on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Dance Club Play chart. It is a love song wherein the word "drug" has an intentionally open-ended meaning for the listener's interpretation, and became one of the band's signature songs. This was one of five hit songs from the Sports album, an '80s landmark that sold 7 million copies in America. When the Sports singles ran out, the band released the biggest hit of their career: "The Power of Love," a #1 smash in 1985 from the movie Back To The Future.
According to Lewis, he wrote the song in only a few minutes. He drove to his attorney's office and told him, "Bob, give me a pen and paper!" According to Lewis, the song is a love song, and the meaning of the word "drug" in the song was purposely open ended. "It's really a love song. It's not a pro-drug song; it's not really even an anti-drug song. The word drug sort of gets your attention. But I think in love relationships there's more than 'I want you' or 'I need you' kind of thing." Lewis believed the definition of love was very open to interpretation depending on the listener. "I think real love contains humor and anger and confusion, all of those things."
The video echoes the song's origin, with Lewis waking up late, remembering he has a concert that night, and racing across San Francisco using his yellow convertible, the San Francisco ferry, and a chartered helicopter to get to the concert on time, sighting a woman twice on his way, and finding her in the front row at the concert. The woman is actress Signy Coleman, whose mother was a friend of Lewis's mother and also appears in the music video for ‘Heart and Soul’. According to Lewis, one of the reasons the band agreed on doing the music video was to avoid a literal translation of the song and its lyrics. "The song [...] is not about drugs. It's a love song. The only way to avoid that was to sort of do 'a day in the life', which is what [the video] is."
When the theme song of the 1984 film Ghostbusters was released, Huey Lewis sued Ray Parker Jr. and Columbia Pictures for copyright infringement, claiming that Parker had stolen the melody from ‘I Want a New Drug’. The three parties settled out of court. Details of the settlement (specifically, that Columbia paid Lewis a settlement) were confidential until 2001, when Lewis commented on the payment in an episode of VH1's Behind the Music. Parker subsequently sued Lewis for breaching confidentiality.
Label – Chrysalis
Songwriters – Chris Hayes, Huey Lewis
Producers – Huey Lewis and the News
SONG LYRICS
[Intro]Oh-oh
[Verse 1]
I want a new drug
One that won't make me sick
One that won't make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick
I want a new drug
One that won't hurt my head
One that won't make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red
[Chorus]
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
[Verse 2]
I want a new drug
One that won't spill
One that don't cost too much
Or come in a pill
I want a new drug
One that won't go away
One that won't keep me up all night
One that won't make me sleep all day
[Chorus]
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
[Post-Chorus]
I'm alone with you, baby
[Instrumental Break]
[Verse 3]
I want a new drug
One that does what it should
One that won't make me feel too bad
One that won't make me feel too good
I want a new drug
One with no doubt
One that won't make me talk too much
Or make my face break out
[Chorus]
One that won't make me nervous
Wondering what to do
One that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you
I'm alone with you
[Post-Chorus]
I'm alone with you, yeah-yeah