the perfect drug video interpretations

Although many have interpreted The Perfect Drug as Trent Reznor's first "love song", I think the video paints a picture of an angry frustrated man searching for his lover. He demands "and I want you and I need you" with a whip in his hand. When he says "you're the only one that's understood" I get the impression that he is saying this to someone who has left him. With the intermittent spacing of the young girl in the video, it may possibly mean that the "lover" is very immature or too young for the relationship. After searching the garden, the bedroom and then calmly drugging himself he waits patiently by the window with a dog in his lap. The dog perhaps represents his faithful devotion to the one he loves and is waiting for.
-crystal

the video for the perfect drug tries to portray to the viewer the sense of loss that is felt in the song.

first, the video can be broken down into several settings and characters. the settings include multiple rooms inside a very antique mansion of a wealthy gentleman (trent) in the mid-nineteenth century england. also located at this mansion is a small pool, a hedge maze, and some sort of freezer. the main characters include trent (the gentleman), what looks to be a young boy, and a few others that appear to be mourners.

next, with settings and characters established, the symbols must be examined thus, when combined with the settings and characters, themes may be realized. one of the major re-occurring symbols is of the phallus and death. near the beginning, and within moments of each other, two scenes present two separate but identical phallus/death symbols. the first is of a man's body laying on the ground with the upper portion of his torso concealed by a huge urn (0:15). the next scene is of a large monolith broken in two parts, one still stuck in the ground, the other lying on the lawn, while two mourners stand watching in the background (0:31). other symbols that point towards death are the vulture (a bird which feeds on the dead) and the assorted mourners dressed in black.

another important point of interest is of the emerald-greed liquid which the gentleman is drinking. that liquid is called absinthe, an extremely intoxicating and psychohallucinagenic beverage that was used heavily from about the late 18th to the early 20th centuries. it is important because the entire video and its theme is centered around it in various aspects of the consumption of the drink: the cause, the procedure, the high, the low.

the cause
the reason for the gentleman's use of absinthe is clearly depression, but the cause of the depression is quite ambiguous. with the many re-occurring phallic/death symbols, the depression could be the loss of masculinity or what masculinity means. men are "supposed" to be strong and stoic, while sadness and depression would be signs of weakness and thus femininity. especially in the mid-nineteenth century setting, sadness in a man would be very "undignified." that obviously leads to the question: why is he depressed and saddened? the you could be a variety of things, from a lover to childhood innocence. i prefer to agree with the latter for the reason of the young boy throughout the entirety of the video. the child seems to be a reflection of the gentleman, a symbol of his childhood.

the procedure
the process of consuming absinthe is mostly historical, followed perfectly in "the perfect drug." absinthe is an extremely bitter drink, virtually impossible to swallow undiluted. to dilute, the gentleman places the "absinthe spoon," a spoon with ornamental holes in it, places a sugar cube on top and pours water, or possibly some other alcoholic drink over the sugar cube, thus making the absinthe taste sweeter. of course, before consuming absinthe, the person drinking it already realizes the potency of the drink and is, when used widely in the 17th-20th century, very depressed and wishing to escape from reality.

the high
even though absinthe is mostly alcohol, because of its chemical makeup, it also possesses hallucinogenic qualities. these hallucinations of the gentleman are represented in emerald-green lighting. his is thrashing around and seemingly in a fit of rage. people appear out of blackness and an unnerving sense of the disarray of his mind clouded by the absinthe. there is virtually two cuts per frame. this causes a strobing effect that allows the viewer, even after multiple viewings, only a vague concept of the mind of the gentleman.

the low
the absinthe's effects wear off and the gentleman is back down again, only this time it seems he's even lower than before. the young boy can be seen watching the gentleman from a window and standing right behind him while he gazes out the window. he is haunted by his lost child hood and his melancholy is a result. it's a perpetual cycle: he's depressed and drinks absinthe, which causes him to be further depressed, which causes him to drink more absinthe, etc. this all will eventually drive the gentleman to past the point of insanity for that is the main side-effect of prolonged and repeated usage of the drink. a very bleak and unhopeful outlook on depression and the attempts (even the attempts buried in obscure social history) and how ultimately all the endeavors to escape reality fail miserably.
-broken

This song is one of great interest to me for i see within it a history of a great man. Sad yet triumphant. It seems the child has to do with the obvious past child named Michael or so the name is in angelic. This all of course is from the video. Then there are the two women. It seems to be about past relationships that have not worked out so well. around the middle of the song you see Trent drinking from a wineglass a drug. This looks like it might be about his problem with drugs, and suddenly his world is thrown into an uproar. in the end you see the child once again gazing upon Trent in his sorrow and confusion. The unclearness leads me to believe that he never ment this to happen. its not something he wanted as a child. and the dog would be in rememberance of maise, his dog that passed away. In short, The Perfect Drug is about everything he has lost.
-Cain

Okay, if you can't tell by the video, the writing of the song should tip you off that Trent Reznor is putting a play on Edgar Allan Poe. The Raven in the background should reveal this, and the clothes also add to this theme. The song itself is as all of Poe's "great" writings: a woman who he loves deeply dies and he wishes to be with her in eternity.
-michael