Peter is right. Most songs by the Stones have double meanings about drugs.
“Brown Sugar” not only references sugar and molasses, but also obviously refers to African women sold on the market as slaves—disgustingly sold as things, But the song even more refers to a brown version of heroin that resembles brown sugar. According to the Stones, one could have sugar in one’s coffee, with an African slave, all the while taking opiates intravenously.
No wonder folks thought this band (the Rolling Stones) was degenerate (including many of the great blues singers from which the Stones borrowed from (if not stole from outright)).
Nonetheless, this Rolling Stones music comprised the symbolic environment in which one grew up, insofar as one grew up in the milieu of the general music of the rock of the ‘60s/the hard rock/the punk/etc—that was typical music of Galveston, TX in the 1980s.
So if “Waiting on a Friend” means “Waiting for the Man,” then so be it. I guess I became inured to such doublespeak with such literal songs from the ‘90s as “ My Drug Buddy ” by the Lemonheads. I agree, it is no good when druggies must be literal. I’d rather be waiting for a friend, let alone the man, than waiting for a literal “drug buddy.”
That said, the Stones’ “Waiting on a Friend” is pretty good, and my take regarding a loneliness which seeks understanding with another still holds true regarding that song. Surrounded by people who only wish to get a fix, it is nice to hear the term friend once in awhile.
I could offer a defense of the Lemonheads’ “My Drug Buddy” too, but it would be either pathetic or obscene.
“My Drug Buddy” is surely a song I don’t want played at my funeral.
BTW—(unlike the Stones’ video) the Lemonheads’ video is bad, but the song is good nonetheless..
