Track 8 from “Sticky Fingers”. (WARNING EXPLICIT CONTENT)
“Sticky Fingers” is a drug album whose songs are divided between defiant and defeated. ‘Sister Morphine’ is the darkest of them all, with the morphine addicted narrator slipping between life and death

The song was partially written and first recorded by Mick Jagger’s girlfriend Marianne Faithfull. Marianne Faithfull was a young British musician who was first introduced to drugs by the members of the Rolling Stones and would go on to battle a serious heroin addiction throughout the seventies and eighties. “Wild Horses” is also inspired in part by Marianne Faithfull and her drug addiction.

Lyrics

Here I lie in my hospital bed
Tell me, Sister Morphine, when are you coming round again?
Oh, I don’t think I can wait that long
Oh, you see that I’m not that strong
The scream of the ambulance is sounding in my ears
Tell me, Sister Morphine, how long have I been lying here?
What am I doing in this place?
Why does the doctor have no face?
Oh, I can’t crawl across the floor
Ah, can’t you see, Sister Morphine, I’m trying to score
Well it just goes to show
Things are not what they seem
Please, Sister Morphine, turn my nightmares into dreams
Oh, can’t you see I’m fading fast?
And that this shot will be my last
Sweet Cousin Cocaine, lay your cool cool hand on my head
Ah, come on, Sister Morphine, you better make up my bed
‘Cause you know and I know in the morning I’ll be dead
Yeah, and you can sit around, yeah and you can watch all the
Clean white sheets stained red