It’s tempting to divide the classic era of Velvet Underground into two distinct eras. The first is the noisy, avant-garde direction the band took with John Cale as a prominent creative voice. The second is the era with new member Doug Yule, which saw the band move to a cleaner, more populist sound in an attempt to make up for the sales that were lacking in the first two releases. It certainly seems a drastic change of direction when you think that in the span of a year they had gone from “Sister Ray” to songs called “Jesus”. But of course, as with all generalisations, it proves to be much more complicated when looked at closely.
The start is that the populist, simple sound was still there on the first two records, with simple chord structures and heavy rock and roll influences defining so much of the bands work. But here on the The Velvet Underground, named as though it was a new debut, Reed and company push those tendencies and strengths to the surface with stripped down instrumentation and an emphasis on smooth, delicate ballads. But in some sense they don’t completely complete accessibility, which helps to make their third album so distinct. This is not just true in the songs that so clearly demonstrate that their bizarre tendencies hadn’t gone away – particularly “The Murder Mystery” – but with the sheer vulnerability that comes with this stripped down approach, bringing to mind the kind of lo-fi independent artists that would come in the albums wake, ranging from The Microphones’ stereo experiments to the deceptively simple writings of Daniel Johnston.
And the vulnerability of the music makes Lou Reed seem more so as a result. Songs like “Sunday Morning” and “Here She Comes Now” on previous albums also demonstrated this, but this also came predominately with the hints of hidden sexuality and/or paranoia (though that’s definitely here too). Lou Reed has never been the most deist of song writers – despite being Jewish he was the type who claimed his only religion was rock – but there is a clear spirituality that isn’t hidden behind other substances helping him reach transcendence. On the contrary, he is searching for some kind of direction; there is every possibility that the lack of success he was having with his band would lead him to feel this way.
As well as the continued excellence of Tucker and Morrison, it is worth noting how much Doug Yule contributions help to highlight the band’s popular tendencies. As well as the ballads and rock&roll already prominent on previous releases, there are a pastiche, show tune elements that I most associated with sixties rock, and there is even a hint of the gospel with organs changing from cacophonous noises to quietly backing melodies and arpeggios. This means that, altogether, The Velvet Underground is midway between the diversity of the The Velvet Underground and Nico and the precision broadness of Loaded. On top of all this, the dulcet welsh tones of Cale are replaced with two voices, that of both Yule and Tucker, which each have a naive, fragile quality that compliments the record perfectly.
In fact the first song on the record, “Candy Says”, seems to be deliberately placed as such to introduce the world not just to the drastic new sound, but the new band member. The first a few songs that Lou Reed would write about the transgender, Warholian muse Candy Darling, and compared to the sarcastic playfulness of the most famous example, “Walk on the Wild Side”, would be as quiet and as sweet as the two composites of her name would imply. Doug Yule’s voice brings an airiness to song, in all its bright clean guitar glory, that Lou Reed’s rougher voice wouldn’t be able to. But at the same time, with lyrics like “Candy says I hate the quiet places/ that cause the smallest taste of what will be” seem to be a self aware commentary on both the tone of the song itself, and create a sort of mission statement for the album itself: that just because the music will be quiet, doesn’t mean that the substance isn’t still there.
Almost as further demonstration, the record moves on to “What’s Goes On”, which is among the loudest songs on the record and a mixture of Loaded’s directness and some of the messy guitar lines and organ fills of the previous two records (though not compressed to complete oblivion). The lead guitar lines have an almost screeching, psychedelic feel, and the drums and guitar roll alongside an echoing rock organ. All the while Reed portray’s an almost schizophrenic mind, one where minute by minute he goes on from up to down, birth to death, and from the paranoia of the verses and the subject to the reassurance of the narrator in the chorus and the stable pleasure of the song itself.
In “Some Kinda Love”, Lou Reed returns to the kind of playful and fetishistic kind of sexuality that Velvet Underground are literally named for. Through bouncy chords and sliding guitar lines, and slight percussion hitting on what appears to be a cowbell – *Will Ferrell reference* – it details what appears to be the negotiation and explanation of a sexual fetish between a couple of ambiguous persuasion (at least that’s what it appears to me. What kind of name is Margarita for anybody?). Reed’s voice is typical of that playfulness, with a calm explanation of the details with wry laughs as the act is taking place.
This tone is of a direct contrast to the next song on the album, and one of Velvet Underground’s most iconic songs, with “Pale Blue Eyes”. By contrast Reed’s voices reveals all the hurt of unrequited love, from the hurt of those first lines to the underlying bitterness that can clearly be heard when he calls his object of affection “best friend”. This both fulfils the mission statement of the first song, in which the quiet emotions of the tambourines, clean guitars and tremolo keyboards feel so huge in comparison to the actual sound, and also conveys the down is up, outward ambivalent yet inward empathetic mindset that defines “What Goes On”, as well as most of the Velvet Underground oeuvre the more you begin to examine it.
This emotion moves on to the final song of the first side, which like the last song of the next side shows a narrator at a sign of struggle, going through a personal crisis and acknowledging such. Here though, in “Jesus”, the character is taking some kind of step to change that mindset, looking to some kind of deity for help. The music has the feel of a kind of reluctant spirituality, with the mixture of the rock ballad, the acoustic folk and even a bit of gospel blues in the choral vocals all helping to portray the light trying to be found in seeming hopelessness.
However, Side Two opens with what appears to be a reaction to the conclusion of the first, with “Beginning to See the Light” (not to be confused with the Duke Ellington jazz standard) having the initial sound of religious transcendence. Reed’s vocals in turn have the tone of passionate gospel pastors, before moving into reassuring, poppy bridges and filling his speech with wails of joy and laughter. The acoustic folk rock matches this job, with stabbing acoustic chords merged with smooth electric and what I would describe as the most “traditional” percussion of the whole record. But even after all that it soon becomes clear how vague the light in question is: is it that religious epiphany? Staying up for too long? Is it even some acceptance of despair of absurdism, as the “black and blue” seems to indicate? Or is it all of those things? Either way, Velvet Underground shoes a rare contentment, it just doesn’t have to be altogether positive.
“I’m Set Free” follows directly on from that dissonant feeling of freedom and entrapment. The music here seems to reflect that balance, particularly Tucker’s percussion which moves from singular slams to a pretty clear march to find the sanctuary the narrator so desperately wants. Reed meanwhile gets a beautiful guitar solo with an echoing haunt to each note, which matches with Morrison and Yules backing vocals to be of a community, but still only be there in the distance. And maybe the most famous line, “I’m set free to find a new illusion”, is up there with Satre and Camus for descriptions of the Absurd. That Lou Reed was a good lyricist, don’t you know?
For a song called “That’s the Story of My Life”, there must be some perverse joke in the fact that this is the shortest song on the album, and his life is defined by a four line verse which keeps on repeating. The music is still bright and shiny regardless, with the light taps of another, galloping cowbell from Tucker, an equally jumping and joyous bassline from Yule and Morrison’s clean acoustic setting the mood perfectly for that mix of guitars and organ which surf over the top in an almost Chuck Berry-like manner. Lou Reed’s meanwhile manages to convey the struggle for morality in such a pithy and simple way that I’m just going to leave the lyrics here for you to read:
That’s the story of my life
That’s the difference between wrong and right
But, Billy said, Both those words are dead
That’s the story of my life
This moves on to what, in an album otherwise filled with complexity in simple rock and folk balladry, is among the Velvet’s Undergrounds most peculiar and experimental songs. “The Murder Mystery”, with its experiments in perspectives and voices around multiple channels, sounds like the type of song that had its origins in the similar sonic peculiarities in White Light/White Heat. This especially seems so since that album was also full of so much death, which up until this point the The Velvet Underground has not really been so. However, it’s position on this album helps to lend it a unique timbre to the rest of the band’s discography; where on the previous album the noise of the organ would blow out to abrasive proportions, here it maintains a kind of mystic, sustained feel as though we are in a much more desensitised mindset (except for the strange burst before the transition to the more pastiche like, jarringly happy sounding coda, and of course that chaotic ending). The guitars have this same quality too, with the repeating escalation clearly heard in a sombre, suspenseful manner (especially when combined with Tucker’s continuing cymbals) for Morrison and Reed’s agitated stream-of-consciousness, and then moving to a high, psychedelic quality for Yule and Tuckers more delicate and melodic choruses. By the end of the song the pianos and organs have this feel of reversal, as though all these crimes are being put on rewind and are going to happen again. It’s choice lyrics might be more of sound and evocative qualities than any specific intents, but by the end of these multiple mixtures of voices its hard to know where the beautiful images of daytime begin and the horrible images of death end. Billy was right; both those words are dead. At least here, anyway.
Rather than leaving us with such a strange and confusing denouement, like with “Sister Ray”, Velvet Underground leaves us with as much content as they can with the beautiful closer, “After Hours”. As though a Broadway show-tune was written to be performed a basement, the song contains only Doug’s steady bass, Lou’s sparse acoustics and, for a rare but always delightful inclusion, the lead vocals of one Maureen Tucker. Like Maureen Tucker are so on the cusp between speech and song, but Tucker imbues the lyrics with an innocence that Reed maybe couldn’t pull of so convincingly; its that vulnerable perspective that makes me think Daniel Johnston loves this record. There is a sense of finality to the lyrics here more than any other Velvet Underground record, particularly with the image of closing doors, but compared to the sing-song tone of the music there is an incredible melancholy to it, as though the narrator has so given up on life that she refuses to come out of her room, but there is an almost naive hope that her life will get better regardless. That final “I’d never have to see the day again” sounds like a request to do, or a plea to not, each different time I hear it. At least that wasn’t true of the band.
If there was any feeling that the band hid subpar song craft behind sonic experimentation, than The Velvet Underground should render any of those discussions ridiculous. It is among the single best examples of the power of pop simplicity, the ability to hide complex emotions under the veneer of simple and concise melodies. Still, the band couldn’t see fit to leave those stranger tendencies entirely behind, and a result we get a record of both directness and variety. The band would continue to push that mantra for the next album, one with that would show that they could match any of their more financially successful counterparts in pure musicianship. The Velvet Underground would finally get the commercial success they wanted. And then they would break up. I guess it’s better than nothing…
What did you think, though?
The Velvet Underground Album Rankings
- White Light/White Heat
- The Velvet Underground and Nico
- The Velvet Underground (of all the band rankings I’ve done for this series, I’ve hated doing this one the most)