Using the above suggestions (thank you!), I rewrote the central subroutine as follows: 
sub insert_unique( $table, $column, $value ) {
    state %sths;
    if ( !exists $sths{$table} ) {
        $sths{$table}{SELECT} =
            $dbh->prepare("SELECT id FROM $table WHERE $column = (?)")
+;
        $sths{$table}{INSERT} =
            $dbh->prepare("INSERT INTO $table ($column) VALUES (?) RET
+URNING id");
    }
    my $rowid;
    my $sth = $sths{$table}{SELECT};
    $sth->execute($value);
    my $rows = $sth->fetchall_arrayref( {} );
    if ($rows->@*) {
        $rowid = $rows->[0]->{id};
    }
    else {
        $sth = $sths{$table}{INSERT};
        $sth->execute($value);
        $rows = $sth->fetchall_arrayref( {} );
        $rowid = $rows->[0]->{id};
    }
    return $rowid;
}

[download]
Which works.

It does seem to me a lot of code to accomplish a seemingly basic requirement. I'm implementing UNIQUEness, for one thing. But it works, and it's pretty fast adding 60,000 songs. (I didn't notice much difference whether or not the column was indexed.)

In reply to Re: SQLite: INSERT into a unique column and retrieve rowid by ibm1620
in thread SQLite: INSERT into a unique column and retrieve rowid by ibm1620

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