"For he on honey-dew hath fed,/ And drunk the milk of Paradise."

The answer to yesterday's quiz?

Like the poem quoted in the title (continued above) from S.T. Coleridge's Kubla Khan, the three works in question are about opium/heroin experiences, also known as the milk of the poppy. Berlioz was a noted opium user, as were many Romantics of the era—de Quincey, e.g.

The Symphonie Fantastique famously "tells the story of 'an artist gifted with a lively imagination' who has 'poisoned himself with opium' in the 'depths of despair' because of 'hopeless love.'" The Velvet Underground song is, of course, heroin porn, an underground classic that shocked the world in its day. And the La's la-la-la pop song is controversially said to be about the experience of heroin "racing through my brain," "pulsin' through my vein"—rushing again and again and nothing else heal can "heal my pain."

Thanks for playing.