Reference no: EM133403606

Case: Johnson may have chosen that lyric because it captures how the characters feel when they are high, the feelings of euphoria and ecstasy that cause them to experience spiritual elements. This can be seen, for example, in the beginning when the narrator describes having a premonition that a crash would occur.

Questions:

• Reflect on the connections between Lou Reed's song "Heroin" and Denis Johnson's collection Jesus' Son. Some questions to consider:
• Why do you think Johnson chose that particular song for his epigraph?
• Why that specific lyric?
• Are there other lyrics in the song you might have chosen as an epigraph if you were the author? Why?
• What would be lost without the epigraph? In other words, does it add something to the text or does it simply reflect and echo the book's content?
• Think of another song that you know from which you could choose a lyric to be the epigraph for Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son? What is the song and what is the lyric? If possible, include a link to your chosen song. What do you think this new epigraph brings to your understanding or impression of Johnson's work that the one from "Heroin" does not?