‘Vasoline’ is a song that was recorded by the American rock band Stone Temple Pilots on their 1994 second studio album Purple. This album was a major commercial success going to #1, but some music critics referred to the band as grunge imitators. Purple may not have been a grunge album, and at this time the grunge movement was already on its deathbed, however this album offered a new gateway into a corridor of rock that many adolescent music geeks didn’t yet know existed. ‘Vasoline’ charted #48 in the UK and it reached #38 in the US. The Stone Temple Pilots are also known by the acronym STP and they are from San Diego, California, and originally consisted of Scott Weiland (lead vocals), brothers Dean (guitar) and Robert DeLeo (bass, backing vocals), and Eric Kretz (drums).
Spreading Vaseline on a surface where gnats are flying around can be a much more user-friendly way to catch these pests, as they will get stuck in this sticky substance. STP lead singer Scott Weiland wrote the lyrics for ‘Vasoline’ after thinking about how flies get stuck in Vaseline, and knowing that it’s not pretty, because they’re not killed instantly, and they struggle to get out to no avail, because they have already met their doom. Scott said that this song is about “feeling like an insect under a magnifying glass.” The song is credited to the whole band, Dean DeLeo, Eric Kretz, Robert Emile DeLeo, and Scott Richard Weiland.
The title of this song was inspired from Weiland’s parents who were listing to the Eagles song ‘Life in the Fast Lane’, and he thought that they were singing, “Flies in the Vasoline.” This song deals with Scott Weiland’s descent into drug addiction, which he was trying to hide it from his bandmates and his girlfriend. He knew he was turning into a junkie, and he sings about searching and going blind, which relates to the cycle he started when he became an addict. Weiland said the song is about him becoming a junkie, being stuck in the same situation over and over again. The Stone Temple Pilots separated in 2003, and 48-year-old Scott Weiland died on December 3, 2015, from a toxic mix of drugs including cocaine, alcohol and the amphetamine MDA – a drug similar to ecstasy in his system.
One time a thing occurred to me
What’s real and what’s for sale
Blew a kiss and tried to take it home
It isn’t you, isn’t me
Search for things that you can’t see
Going blind out of reach
Somewhere in the vasoline
Two times and it has rendered me
Punch drunk and without bail
Think I’d be safer all alone
Flies in the vasoline we are
Sometimes it blows my mind
Keep getting stuck here all the time
It isn’t you, isn’t me
Search for things that you can’t see
Going blind out of reach
Somewhere in the vasoline
You’ll see the look
And you’ll see the lies
You’ll eat the lies
And you will
Flies in the vasoline we are
Sometimes it blows my mind
Keep getting stuck here all the time
It isn’t you, isn’t me
Search for things that you can’t see
Going blind out of reach
Somewhere in the Vasoline
Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the theme this week is grunge music.