When I was in 8th grade my favorite albums were The Velvet Underground & Nico, More Songs About Buildings and Food, and ATLiens. The Talking Heads album was awesome because it had "Girls Want to Be With the Girls" and that made me feel better about being ugly and not having any girls talk to me. At a little over 2 minutes, I wished it was a bit longer, but hey, so did the girls who knew me. Outkast's ATLiens was crazy as all hell and my dad drove a beautiful (read 'really shitty') Chevrolet Caprice Classic, so "Two Dope Boyz (In a Cadillac)" was played every time I got I popped into the car with my friends. It wasn't a Cadillac but it was the best we had at the time, and I loved it. Years later I was taking a government test and one of the questions was "Who was the first African American woman elected to Congress" and I only knew the answer because I loved "Spread" off of "The Love Below". The album I hated just a year earlier was by a group named The Velvet Underground. I was in Orchestra, so my dad had told me to listen to it because it had some nice string arrangements. I hated all of it, especially the song we're talking about in this post "Heroin".
The Velvet Underground & Nico peeling banana stickers in the studio and making music
I listened to the album the whole way through and thought it was noisy, distorted, depressing, and trying too hard to be pretty among all the anger. Heroin in particular was the most noisy, distorted, and depressing. I had never done heroin at age 13 so I felt like I couldn't relate to the song either. I guess hindsight is 20/20 and if I could I'd give a good talking to my 8th grade self. It gets better man, you get less ugly, and you'll end up loving The Velvet Underground. I kept listening to it over and over again, wondering why I hated the song so much, and one day, it just clicked. The beauty in the darkness, the noise textures, the pained vocals, the buildup, all 7 minutes and 13 seconds of the song made sense. I didn't know it at the time, but it was crazy that this album was from 1967. All the guitar textures, background harmonies, nihilistic beauty, every element that took me time to appreciate was revolutionary. This was more than 20 to 30 years before Psychocandy, Daydream Nation, The Soft Bulletin, Nevermind, Is This It. PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING REALLY. That's what's really amazing about Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground. That they've influenced so many bands, great albums, amazing artists, and musical movements. If they never made anything again, they could forever have this one album and be held up as rock Gods. You can't put a price tag on that. Lou Reed embarked upon a pretty crazy solo career, and Metal Machine Music basically paved the way for industrial, so we have a lot to thank him for.
I originally didn't want to do one of these tributes. I never really know how to feel when someone I've never met, but whom I have a connection with, passes away. So many people come out and act like they're affected or pay tribute without any context to the artists work. It seems to come and go like a wave. No one cares, and then they do, and then they don't again. I guess that's why music is so amazing. Years from now we can forget who's singing or playing guitar on the song, and we can forget who wrote the lyrics or managed the band, and we can forget the name of the song and what album it came from. But we can't deny it's there. And we can't deny the power of the music. And I won't ever forget where I was when I first heard The Velvet Underground & Nico. In my room, with a busted ass cassette player, on my bed, in the calm, just listening. I was young and naive, and I hated it then. I think I'll do the same thing now.
Rest in Peace. Lou Reed (1942 – 2013)
As always, please share, enjoy, and spread the love. Peace.
