Recorded 1969 Released 1974
Waiting For My Man
Lisa Says
What Goes On
Sweet Jane
We're Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together
Femme Fatale
New Age
Rock And Roll
Beginning To See The Light
Ocean
Pale Blue Eyes
Heroin
Some Kinda Love
Over You
Sweet Bonnie Brown/It's Just Too Much
White Light/White Heat
I'll Be Your Mirror
At 17, I was haunted by the Velvet Underground.
It's a long story. Less than a year prior was when I started reading a lot of rock writing; because I was becoming a rock geek. And it was hard to hear much outside of the usual AOR crap on the radio back then (okay, still is, I suppose). And I was becoming aware of a whole world of rock and roll that I wasn't hearing. And a name that kept coming up was The Velvet Underground. And I read Ellen Willis' essay on them in Stranded, and somehow I just yearned to hear them (because the best rock writing makes us want to go out and listen to the music). But all I knew of them was that they were from New York in the 60's, and Lou Reed had gotten his start with them. And all I knew of him was that he did "Walk On The Wild Side", which was an okay song, but not a fave. Oh and I once saw him on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and found him pretty boring.
But I was haunted by The Velvet Underground.
And I took to staring at their albums in stores (when they had them) and wondering intently what they really sounded like, and trying to imagine what they really sounded like. And I just had to know.
So on a summer day, the first Saturday after school left out - the 11th grade over at last! - I took my little saved-up allowance and rode the bus to Palo Alto, a town some 10 or so miles from mine, to little hole-in-the-wall Recycled Records, and I spent my hard-earned $7 and change on the big green double album with the sleazy cover. And I took it home. And, trepidatiously, I put it on.
Don't you hate it when someone gives you some bullshit line about how a record "changed their life"? I mean, ferchrissake, you must not have had much of a life.
I guess I didn't. I mean, I was just a 17-year-old misfit no-hoper. And the record changed my life.
To a 17-year-old kid whose concept of a rock concert was some big arena event with lasers and video and sound blasting into the stratosphere, the sound of a band playing in a tiny bar (which is pretty much what The End Of Cole Avenue and The Matrix were, I believe) was something truly new. And to 17 year-old still making the run from bombastic 80's arena rock and only just discovering burning 80's hardcore teen angst, the sound of a band playing intimate, serious, lyrical, and incredibly mature (for rock and roll, but really by any standard) songs about adult subject matter (and I don't just mean the sex-and-drugs shock - all of the Velvets songs were far more adult than adolescent in tone) was more than an eye-opener - it was a total mind-fuck.
I was shocked by this album as I was shocked by every Velvets album I ever heard, each in a different way. What shocked me about 1969 was that it was a glimpse of a whole rock and roll world I knew nothing of - never even imagined; that it opened possibilities in the music and lyrics I'd never dreamed of. But what shocked me most of all, I think, was that I loved it. Instantly. As I recall, I knew within a few bars of "Waiting For My Man" that I was onto something. That this group was not overrated. That this was real. Real like nothing I'd ever heard before. 1969 became the soundtrack to the summer of 1983 for me (it would be a couple months before I'd pick up the Banana album - and even that didn't entirely displace it, though it was an a-bomb to the brain just as much as 1969, if not more). It got to the point where I was actually forbidding myself to listen to it, for fear of over-familiarity ruining it for me.
"Good evening," says Lou Reed, his voice gentle and soft. This was the creepy, leather-clad dude from those solo albums I so often stared at (when I got tired of staring at Velvets albums)? He sounds pretty normal. "We're the Velvet Undrground." And after some idle chit-chat about football, they dig into a loping, grooving version of "Waiting For My Man". As Altman says, it loses none of its power for being taken at a walk, not a run. "Lisa Says", all longing and lonely, giving way to barbershop/doo wop interlude before slamming back in to a final chorus. Then "What Goes On", with its demonic organ courtesy of the ever-underrated Doug Yule. The hypnotic groove they did so well. "Sweet Jane" - the slow version, heavenly wine and roses. "Real Good Time Together" - what a funny song for a band with such a forbidding image. It used to surprise me that I would put it on to hear that song - but I did. "Femme Fatale" - a foreboding bit of garage rock and roll (one of the few times they did sound like a normal rock and roll band - I mean that as a compliment), snotty Stones attitude - "see the way she walks, hear the way she talks ... she's just a little tease". And then the very strange "New Age", a song that mystified me then and still does now. Lou's best singing, perhaps ever. "Over the bridge we go"... I always used to imagine a couple walking through some elegant park at night, walking across a curved bridge over a small river or stream, lit by moonlight and streetlamps. Very romantic and evocative. I just liked the way he sings about making it with Frank and Nancy (a reference which went over my head at the time). "Rock and Roll", her life was saved by - Moe's cymbals and cowbell crashing and ringing away. "Beginning To See The Light", the record REM spent their career trying to make.
Side Three was the long side. "Ocean", pure head music, flowing over you - the music and the rhythm of both song and lyrics suggestive of gentle waves. "Pale Blue Eyes", Lou's greatest love song, and the infamous "Heroin". Stripped of Cale's viola and the feedback shriek, the song depends on itself and Lou's intense delivery for its power. On the surface the performance may be more sedate - emotionally its just as/even more powerful. Sterling Morrison and Clinton Heylin have complained that 1969 is too sedate, that it's not representative of the band. I call BS. One of the greatest things about the Velvets is that underneath the atomic-age roar of "Sister Ray" is the gentle folkie doo-wop of "I'll Be Your Mirror". One of the other greatest things about the Velvets is that under the gentle folkie doo-wop of "I'll Be Your Mirror"is the atomic-age roar of "Sister Ray". Side Four was always the odd side - a little more doo-wop and straight rock and roll ("Over You", "Sweet Bonnie Brown"), a sweet take on "Mirror" with (my brother) Doug on vocals, an extra-slinky, tough "Some Kinda Love", and 8.5 minutes of "White Light/White Heat", the set's one balls-out rocker. All groove and drive, Sterl and Lou trading white-hot licks, until the finale, where Lou calls out "higher", and they bludgeon the tune to death. The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" was a big record for me a year or so before this one. "Won't Get Fooled" is all build-up - after the first time you mostly listen for the climax - Moon's turns across the toms, Roger's scream - "White Light/White Heat" (which clocks in at the same time as "Won't Get Fooled") is almost the same deal - you listen for the climax.
They say you never forget your first love, right? 1969 was my first Velvets album and therefore my first favorite Velvets album. As their studio albums made their way into my collection it would be edged aside. I haven't listened to it that often in the last ... god, twenty-plus years (interestingly, the Velvets album I listen to the most anymore is Loaded). But anytime I do I still find myself thinking "damn! this is good!"
