As a young New York based song writer, Rich Black had "A Very Close Friend of Mine" published in Broadside issue 112 in 1971. The song has an anti-drug message that was supported by the editors of Broadside, who criticized rock music and the hippie culture for their pro-drug messages. Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen felt that a person who "dropped out" and did drugs was one less person to fight the good fight for social change. Black wrote this song about a drug addict named Lenny he remembered from when he was sixteen years old. He does not know what became of Lenny Text extracted from the notes by Jeff Place accompanying The Best of Broadside. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.