McCartney In Goal
McCartney In Goal is a monthly podcast that debates and dissects the greatest albums of popular rock music. Hosted by David Hughes, and fellow judges, Brett and Steve Sumner, each episode the McCartney In Goal team pick a rock or pop music album that they love and put the songs through an imaginary competitive style-knock out format to find the best song on the album. At times, they may be uninformed, biased and they are often a bit unruly. Come and listen in on the fun - and if you enjoy it, TELL A FRIEND!!! Twitter - https://twitter.com/mccartneyin Website - https://mccartneyingoal.com
McCartney In Goal
The Velvet Underground & Nico (self titled)
Episode 51: The Velvet Underground & Nico (self-titled). McCartney In Goal is the podcast that debates the great albums of pop music, using a competitive knock-out format. Today we’re discussing, The Velvet Underground & Nico, which was the debut studio album by the American alternative rock band the Velvet Underground and the German singer Nico. Released by Verve Records in March 1967.
What happens when haunting melodies meet themes of sadomasochism and drug use? Join us as we revisit the cult classic album The Velvet Underground & Nico, exploring the profound impact it had despite its initial commercial failure. We'll kick things off with a lively debate on the best way to introduce this groundbreaking record to new listeners, celebrate Brian Eno's iconic quote about its influence, and delve into how its anti-heroic essence starkly contrasted the 'Summer of Love' ethos, influencing the evolution of punk and post-punk music.
Ever wondered how a chance meeting could change music history? We delve into the fortuitous partnership between Lou Reed and John Cale, from Lou's songwriting days at Pickwick Records to their experimental collaboration that pushed musical boundaries. Our journey takes us through some of the most accessible tracks like "Sunday Morning" and "I'll Be Your Mirror," while examining Nico’s enigmatic influence and Andy Warhol’s pivotal role in funding and promoting their debut album with its iconic banana sticker cover design.
Is it garage rock, experimental rock, or avant-garde rock? We tackle the complexities of labeling The Velvet Underground & Nico, drawing comparisons to early Pink Floyd while debating the contributions of each band member, particularly John Cale’s unique viola sound. Wrapping things up, we host a passionate showdown between tracks like "Venus in Furs" and "Heroin," underscoring the exceptional synergy within the Velvet Underground. Tune in for a nostalgic, insightful, and sometimes humorous exploration of one of rock history's most influential albums.
Twitter - https://twitter.com/mccartneyin
Website - https://mccartneyingoal.com/
Hello and welcome to McCartney and Goal, which is the podcast that debates a great album of popular music using a sporting knockout format. I'm David Hughes and I'm joined by my fellow judges Brett.
Speaker 2:I am tired and I am weary. I could sleep for a ruddy thousand years.
Speaker 1:And I'm joined by Steve Sumner. Hey, babe.
Speaker 2:That's very late 60s. That's very cool. You'd fit into the factory with that as your opening gambit.
Speaker 1:Steve, you and I are enjoying the European sun. Or we would be if it wasn't winter and if we just hadn't had two days of storm isha, uh, whereas, brett, you're still enjoying the argentinian sun, sun, sun lovely lovely, I am indeed, I mean steve steve, steve looks really happy there, don't you that set of puns? No, yeah, I think I think that was the puns rather than the weather.
Speaker 2:Is that all of them.
Speaker 4:That's the puns.
Speaker 1:Whether you are listening to this on a Sunday morning or some other time during the week. Welcome, and we hope to be your mirror to the Velvet Underground and Nico, which was the debut studio album by the Velvet Underground and German singer Nico, which was released in March 1967.
Speaker 2:Solidly professional there. You brought it together nicely yeah that's better. Steve's happier with that.
Speaker 4:He's happier I couldn't have been any, yes, happier. I couldn't have been any less happy.
Speaker 3:So admittedly yes, happier is probably fair that's good.
Speaker 2:Things are looking up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh yeah okay, um, how do you feel about this album?
Speaker 2:before we get straight into round one, I mean, it's a, it's a cult classic. How would you?
Speaker 1:introduce this album to somebody who is not familiar with it?
Speaker 4:oh yeah, I would I would troll them by making them listen to the first track, because they'll listen to the first track and they'll go isn't that all noise and craziness? And then they'll listen to the first track and be like, oh, it's really nice. And then they'll just descend into a world of sadomasochism and heroin and speed and just junkies and drug deals and weirdness and atonal craziness. And they'll be like you trolled meiness and they'll be like you trolled me and I'll be like, no, literally all I did was play you the first song on the album that trolled you on my behalf.
Speaker 1:Well done, that album that is a good intro. Yeah to this album. That is a good summary. Well done, because I was struggling.
Speaker 2:So I'm glad steve stepped in there because I was my mouth the gate trying to think I don't know how you'd sell this album. It's cliche to call it a cult classic, but it is the cool album, isn't it? It's the cool kid at the back of the bus wearing shades on the school trip when he's been told twice not to and throwing a paper ball at his feet back there, can I stick?
Speaker 4:is it too early to stick the Brian Eno quote in, because I think that's the best introduction never too early for eno.
Speaker 4:Never too early for never too early, it's never too early for you know, I'll ask dave, look well. So the? The? It's the point where this quote is so famous that I had to look up who it was attributed to and actually a lot of people just said it's kind of just an urban myth, and lou reed himself said it a few times anyway, but the? The quote is essentially uh, you know, velvet, underground and nico, nobody bought that album but the, the sort of the tell the 12 people that did, or whatever. Everybody formed a band. Uh, and I love I love that.
Speaker 2:It's like you know everyone. Are they the same 12 people that formed a band after watching the sex pistols gig? Because that's the same thing, yeah, but there, yeah, yeah, the sexism played manchester. Wow, and it's you know it is.
Speaker 4:It is regardless of whether you like it or not, and we'll get to that it is, for better or worse, regarded as one of the most influential albums ever made. Yeah, and, and if you care, I'm surprised in a way that it's not, I think, perhaps bigger in in Brett's life, because if you care about punk at all, I mean punk. This is not a punk album, don't get me wrong. Punk doesn't happen for a while, but punk absolutely would not post-punk, any of it would not exist if this album hadn't happened. Because it was the summer of love, for God's sake, and everyone in San Francisco is going ooh, let's take LSD and let our boobs hang out and talk about sex and love and like they're going. No, we're in new york, we're dirty, we smell, we can't play, we're going to make a very, very loud, atonal, horrible noise and we're going to sing about heroin and speed. And in fact, we're going to take heroin, speed because we don't trust your fucking psychedelics, you weird hippies, and everyone hated it and everyone hated them and it didn't sell at all.
Speaker 2:For years now it's regarded years years and years and years and they kept it up really well for years.
Speaker 4:It wasn't yeah oh yeah, for years it's brilliant, but now it's. It is genuinely one of the most seismic events in in rock history, which is you know with. Again, whether you like it or not, that's kind of undeniable yeah, I mean nothing.
Speaker 2:Some sums up the trope of the anti-hero in rock and roll more than this album like oh yeah if you're going to characterize the different parts of rock and roll and the stories and the tropes, and then the anti-hero is definitely a massive part of that and and people are attracted to music vastly because of that and this album it just characterises it so purely 100% but there is also one of the things that doesn't possibly get talked about enough is there's also some absolutely fantastic music here.
Speaker 4:You know, just completely brilliant and totally unique and really off the wall and you know, totally unique off the wall. And you know, totally unique off the wall and sometimes just bloody great songs which again just gets forgotten in all the mythology of it all. Stop us, david, let's talk songs.
Speaker 1:That's a fulsome summary and introduction to this album. So well done, chaps, and let's get into round one. The first pairing in round one is Sunday Morning, the opening track on the album against I'll Be your Mirror, which is sung by Nico.
Speaker 5:Sunday morning brings the dawning, it's just a restless feeling by my side. Early dawning and Sunday morning, it's just the way.
Speaker 6:I be your mirror, reflect what you are. In case you don't know, I be the wind, the rain and the sunset.
Speaker 1:Do you want to say something about the different song styles on this album? How would you describe or categorise the different variations on song styles?
Speaker 4:well, there's quite a mix, quite a mishmash of a few different things, and one of them is sort of dirty in your face, sort of almost garage rock Lou, sort of Almost garage rock, new York garage rock. One of them is Sort of sonic experimentation and one of them, at the behest of A certain Andy Warhol, is pretty songs. And there's two reasons for these two songs, uh, one of which is a german, shantus, who's learned some very interestingly pronounced english called nico, and the other is that, uh, they were asked to write a hit single, um, which was sunday morning, which was very much the last thing that that got recorded for the album and was written for Nico Written specifically for Nico to sing.
Speaker 3:And then he's like no, fuck it, I'm singing it, I'm singing it, it sounds good.
Speaker 2:Well, lou Reed was a songwriter, wasn't he? For Pickwick Records, that was his job. He described himself as a poor man's Carole King I don't know if they ever had any of his hits with Pickwick Records, but he was. So he knew how to churn out songs and that's how he met John Cale, who was a Welsh classical music student studying on a grant in New York, and they met, I think, through recordings for Pickwick Records. And then, yeah, so Loued knew how to turn out songs and, could you know, knock something, yeah lou reed knew how to turn out songs and kale knew how to be weird as fuck yeah, and that that's.
Speaker 4:That's where that fulcrum of the two of them was perfect, because I think he he was able to push lou reed over the edge and go. No, no, this is great. I'm just going to play some like weird atonal viola on this now yeah, um, you know because, because, uh, none of them had done anything sort of out in the wild, apart from john kale who was playing with with various very sort of influential avant-garde uh groups which were like proper 60s, like oh I'm standing on stage putting a banana in my ear and screeching, screeching with a banana in my ear.
Speaker 4:You know it's like what's happening now. You know, like proper, let's push the boundaries of of good taste and art and what's possible on a stage, and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:And kale was right in the middle of all of that, yeah, yeah so these, these two songs um opening round one sunday morning and I'll be your mirror, are um, they're at the pretty end of the spectrum. These are very listenable radio, play pop songs.
Speaker 2:You'd like these, wouldn't you? You'd definitely make a compilation. I reckon you've put both of these in a compilation I haven't put.
Speaker 1:I'll Be your Mirror on a compilation, but Sunday Morning is the opening track on my sunday morning playlist.
Speaker 2:In fact it's say what you see.
Speaker 1:Literal, I mean that it's called it's called sunday morning comma making pancakes and it's what I put on on a sunday morning when I get.
Speaker 2:If only the kings had done a song called making pancakes, it'd be fucking perfect. You could put that next and then it'd be done. You don't need two songs. That way, making pancakes, flipping them again, would be the real who knows when we was.
Speaker 4:When did we last make pancakes?
Speaker 3:oh, I don't know when pancakes, pancakes, pancakes, yeah yeah, that was a kick song, it was a bayside oh lovely, yeah, so that's nice that you put on your wrist.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's a very pretty song it's a very pretty song. It gets on your sunday morning I mean, it really does what it's the ron seal of the velvet underground back catalogue because, it really does what it says on the tin. You can put it on the sunday morning and it's perfect for that kind of marzy liminal state. You get up, you want your croissants, nice and toasted.
Speaker 1:You get your coffee brewed yeah, you, you say that, but um, there are different types of sunday morning aren't there, and if you listen to the whole of this album, you would assume that.
Speaker 2:So you're saying your sunday morning starts with heroin. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1:no, you well you would assume that a song about sunday morning on this album would be about uh coming would be about being hungover and feeling rough after a hard Saturday night. But it's not, is it? It's a really pretty song, although.
Speaker 3:Of course it bloody is.
Speaker 1:Although the lyrics are not designed to be pretty lyrics are they?
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, but it's blindingly. I mean, that's. What's cool about it is that it sounds like a nice.
Speaker 2:Sunday morning, if you listen to it.
Speaker 4:It's very much a hangover paranoia. Sunday morning yes.
Speaker 2:Clever, isn't it Clever?
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you want to talk about the lyrics? So the lyrics are about paranoia.
Speaker 2:There's paranoia references certainly to it. Who said that you did I, I didn't. Who said that you did I didn't? I never mentioned that, Are they? What are you?
Speaker 4:looking at. You're making that up. No, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're out to get you. Yes, so I mean it's arguably it is about just a Sunday morning until you get to watch out the world's behind you and there's always someone around you who will call this nothing at all and all this stuff and it's it's very much a kind of you know, watch out, the world's behind you, there's always someone around you. You know it's like, hang on a minute um, but delivered so beautifully so breezily you almost don't notice it and also, really, what's funny about it is that lou reed never really sang like that before or after.
Speaker 4:It's like the only time he delivers that. It's almost like a finger, you know. It's almost like flipping the bird at nico, like no, naturally I'm going to sing this, but I'll sing it like you would have sung it. It's like in like it almost sounds like a feminine uh, feminine vocal, which is like the last thing you'd associate with mr bob dylan influence new york gutter punk.
Speaker 2:Lou reed it's like I mean, it's amazing. This opens the album, doesn't it? And it's their first album, so like that's the introduction to this band and this is he's setting out this, which he never repeats again, really, no, it's, totally it's a terrible opening for this band.
Speaker 1:It's brilliant yeah, it does stand alone on this album. Um, it sounds like something that he would have on transformer.
Speaker 4:He would have written for his solo record transformer to be fair, it sounds like something that would happen on on the velvet underground album, which is like two albums from now, after white light, white heat, which is a really after cale leaves and that that's full of things like pale blue eyes and stuff which is like really very, very gentle and beautiful and lilting, which actually he could do, but it, it doesn't. It doesn't uh, certainly it doesn't foreground their avant-garde noise not this album, definitely, you know, you know it's it as dave says.
Speaker 2:It is a real setup. It's like hey, are you saying earlier their avant-garde noise? Not this album. Definitely, as Dave says, it is a real setup. It's like hey, or you saying earlier.
Speaker 1:You said it like trolls you, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You buy this album, you put this on, you listen to Sunday Morning and you think, oh, I'm going to make me some pancakes.
Speaker 2:I'm going to make me some pancakes. This is lovely.
Speaker 1:And then by the time you're flipping the map, what's that? What's that about?
Speaker 2:yeah, you're in some like psychedelic nightmare you come back in, the pancakes are ready and he's there halfway through Heroin and you're like what the fuck's going on here? What's gone wrong anyway?
Speaker 4:I think it. I think it's going to be very clear that Sunday morning is going to go through, because it's clearly the stronger song, surely? I mean, I'm certainly voting for Sunday morning here.
Speaker 1:It's the only one on my playlist, Steve, so I'm with you.
Speaker 4:Well, I guess that's got to be a 3-0. So I'll Be your Mirror is very much, I think, the least of the three Nico lead vocal contributions. It's still a nice song. Apparently it came from a phrase nico said to to lou reed and a lot of these things came from factory stuff that was happening around them, and she actually said lou lou, I will be your mirror, uh, in a kind of like I'll represent, I'll represent your uh art on stage for you. And he sort of took that title and ran with it like he did with a lot of stuff and, um, that nice. But it's clearly the lesser of the three Nico contributions for me.
Speaker 1:Is that because?
Speaker 2:No, I love it. It's really nice. I do love it. It's really sweet and pretty. I mean, warhol loved it as well. He wanted it scratched into the outer groove, the I'll be your mirror line, just that kind of resolve.
Speaker 4:It's a favourite of all of them, it's a favourite of Nico, it's a favourite of Warhol and it's a favourite of Lou Reed. But I think it's one of the weakest tracks on the album. So you know there's no accounting for these things. There we go.
Speaker 1:Okay, there we go.
Speaker 3:So Sunday.
Speaker 1:Morning goes through 3-0 to the next round?
Speaker 2:Of course it does.
Speaker 1:And our second pairing in the first round is two Nico songs.
Speaker 6:Femme Fatale against All Tomorrow's Parties. I realise. Just look into her thoughts-coloured eyes. She built you up to just put you down. What a clown, cause everybody knows the things she does to please. She's just a little tease. See the way she walks, hear the way she talks. And what cost can we share the poker? Wear To all tomorrow's parties A hand-me-down kiss from who knows where To all tomorrow's parties, and where will she go?
Speaker 2:Okay, so well. Nico was an actress and model. She'd been modelling since the mid-50s. She appeared in La Dolce Vita. She'd been kind of hanging out with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, and then she runs into this very glamorous world of Andy Warhol and the Factory and he sees her and he puts her together with this band he is managing called Velvet Underground, against their better judgment and against their wishes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. They did not want to do it. And she had these really kind of long rituals of getting ready for gigs and shows. She'd light candles and it just drove Lou Reed mad. So there was very much.
Speaker 4:I think the thing is that we certainly that.
Speaker 2:I didn't Sorry but have I talked? No, no, no, no, go for it. It's beautiful, I love it it.
Speaker 4:So the thing that I sort of had to re-appreciate was that obviously nico is not quite a footnote but sort of fades away a little bit story-wise after this to an extent, and the velvet underground go on to be one of the most influential bands ever and lou reed goes on to have a very big career and so does john kale to an extent and all these things. But at the time the very underground were literally nobody at all and and two members of uh, the factory went to see them play this gig and I think I think they were playing black angel's death song and they played it so loud and so awfully that the venue said please don't ever play that song again. So they played it again twice as loud and and were banned from the gig. But but the the story goes, there were two members of the factory sort of crowd there who went to andy warhol and said you're gonna like this lot and and so he sort of said, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna literally I think the word is sponsor them, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean, and and pay for all the recordings of them so they can make an album. So they, they just they were nobody, so they couldn't turn it down.
Speaker 4:And the thing again that I'd forgotten is that he was everybody. I mean, he was absolutely huge, at the height of his powers. Pop art was like a thing, he was being taken seriously and and so there was this. They couldn't say no to any of it because, as much as they were like fuckers when it came to like looking wildly anti-commercial, they did want to make a record and they did want to sell it to people. And if you know, you don't say no to Andy Warhol.
Speaker 4:And I'd forgotten all of that stuff at that point.
Speaker 1:That's a good point. Yeah, go on. Well, that's a good point that they didn't have a record deal at the time and Andy Warhol, as you say, steve, was very famous, um, and he paid for them to go into the studio and make this record, and it was only after they'd made the record that it was. Then they then, or andy warhol, um, and his people, started touting it around record companies and I think it got rejected by three or four record companies before everyone had to go.
Speaker 2:They got rejected everyone and then they had to go to verve, which was a jazz label. That's how bad it got that to go to a jazz label to try and get signed and then I think verve said we need a single.
Speaker 1:So that's why they wrote sunday morning they went back and wrote sunday morning, but it was. Um. I mean, they were interested because andy warhol was associated with it, and I I think an example of that is that the front cover, which we may talk about a little bit later on, had this, uh, this idea that it was a banana, but there was like a peel back um yeah, a concept yeah there was a sticker that you could peel back the banana, and there was a reveal underneath.
Speaker 2:It's a yellow banana, and then they revealed a pink banana underneath.
Speaker 1:But to do that on an LP in the 60s. I mean that was expensive to do and it delayed the album because they had to find somewhere.
Speaker 2:Delayed it for ages, didn't it?
Speaker 1:that could specially do this. But the only reason the record company was prepared to do this and spend the money was because they thought that people might buy it because andy warhol was involved with it.
Speaker 4:So it was a big. Yeah, you're right, it was a big deal that a big deal and amazing.
Speaker 1:Andy warhol was was floating around and associated with this and it yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 2:I mean, this album was released in 1967, but march 1967 and it was delayed because of andy warhol wanted to put a special peel-off sticker on the front of it. I mean, I mean, how mad and revolutionary is this album anyway for 1967 to think it could have come out in the sixth, the summer of 66, is insane. You know, revolvers maybe just about to come out and this is already they go. Ah, fuck you, it's incredible you know, um.
Speaker 1:I think it's a really good point how important he was to the birth of um, of this album and the velvet underground well, they wouldn't have had one, though without that's much it's made.
Speaker 2:What is amazing is, with that sponsorship, if, with them being the darlings of new york being in the factory shows, being the central part of the exploding, inevitable show which she put on, which was this kind of this kind of multimedia onslaught of light shows and dancers and Nico fronting the band and all of this glamorous, credible glamor, that it didn't really take off, it wasn't massively successful, even with all of that sponsorship. It's extraordinary. It's like you, this is. You think, oh, this is these guys, they look great, they've got andy warhol sponsoring. This is gonna be massive. Nothing, it's just way too ahead of its time way too ahead totally and and and badly timed in in terms of the summer of love.
Speaker 4:It's like the least summer of love ever. Yeah, I mean we've never come out. If it had come out in 68, when suddenly it was like Beggar's Banquet and the White Album and let's all go back to acoustic, it might have had a better ride.
Speaker 2:But the Summer of.
Speaker 4:Love. You're joking, aren't you? Yeah?
Speaker 2:this is like a 19. This should have been 71, this album, shouldn't it, it would have sold by the bucket loads, but people just weren't ready for it. Nowhere close, but it's really interesting. You think about the timing of this and and the way we like to conceptualize times, like we like to think of the 60s as hippies and the summer of love and that was it. But obviously the reality is far more opaque, far more complicated, and this shows it like we live through the 90s yeah and if you look, if kids look back at the 90s now they think, oh, brit pop or rave culture.
Speaker 2:And we can tell you, no, it was really crap. Chart bands stinking up the airwaves, stinking up every most.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly yeah, and it just wasn't. Brick pop lasted what? Two, two years really? Yeah, and it's same in summer of love. George harrison used to say the summer of love was like, it was over in like two, three months, that's like two three months of the whole of the 60s it's like it literally was that summer and then the whole you know crashed on the shore at Woodstock and done.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's crazy, but do you know what I mean? It's like you know, yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:So let's come back to Nico.
Speaker 2:Yes, sorry, dave, we've digressed.
Speaker 1:Well, we have, but maybe appropriately. So Nico was actually, oh, in a very entertaining way. We digress very entertaining way. I mean brilliantly, brilliantly.
Speaker 2:Award winning I would say if there were awards to be given for this shit.
Speaker 1:So Nico was born in Germany and had a fairly nomadic journey across Europe, through France and ended up in America.
Speaker 2:It sounds like a plot line from Sound of Music.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a sort of rambling journey which reflects our conversation on these two songs, Femme Fatale and All Tomorrow's Parties. We've taken a sort of rambling route around the houses but come back to this
Speaker 5:pairing.
Speaker 1:Femme Fatale against All Tomorrow's Parties. What do we think of the actual songs?
Speaker 4:For me it's obvious.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Go on then. What is obvious? Songs, uh, for me. For me it's obvious. Yeah, well, go on then. What is what is obvious? Because me the obvious thing this is interesting, it's obvious. For me it's femme fatale. What's it obvious?
Speaker 4:for you, that's uh, ultimized parties by an absolute mile.
Speaker 1:We never disappoint, do we? Why, femme fatale? And then I'll come to see it's just, this is an absolute pop classic.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just. It's just, it slinks in, it's beautiful, it's got this like she couldn't sound more German, more Nico, more kind of aristocratic. German than she does. It's just this glassy voice. I think someone describes her voice as that of a cello waking up in the morning it's just oh, that's.
Speaker 4:I heard that yeah it's good, isn't it? I mean that's so do you know who, um who, that song is about?
Speaker 2:it's about I? I know, I don't know the story I believe. I believe andy warhol wanted it to be about something called edie sedgwick. I don't know.
Speaker 4:Yes, so he said but well, the the story is not as interesting as other songs written about her, because edie sedgwick was like the ultimate it girl. She was like the original it girl. And she was big in Andy Warhol's set and Andy Warhol was very much kind of behind the scenes going. Why don't you write a song about?
Speaker 3:her.
Speaker 4:Why don't you write a song about him? And that was happening a lot, apparently. But the thing is, edie Sedgwick was also the inspiration for Check this Out by Bob Dylan. Just Like a Woman Leopard Skin, pillbox Hat Fourth Time Around and Like a Rolling Stone. All about Edie.
Speaker 1:Sedgwick. Really Wow, why did she have such an influence on Bob Dylan?
Speaker 4:She was incredibly beautiful and of the moment and was in films and had a sort of mary quant style bob haircut and people. It was very elfin and, just you know, was a big star and people absolutely fell at her feet.
Speaker 1:It sounds like he was either obsessed by her or stalking her if if she wasn't, I mean that's that's.
Speaker 2:That's so on bob dylan, though. To be obsessed by someone and then write lots of songs, I know, and then probably claim they're not written about her.
Speaker 4:No, they're just definitely not about her. They're written about a Chekhov play. I saw oh, edith Sedgwick, I had sex with you and now I'm sad. No, it's not about her, never about her.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no okay never, that's not my style man, it's just not my style.
Speaker 1:So you like Femme Fatale because it's a pop classic, Brett.
Speaker 2:It's a pop classic. Her vocal is just brilliant. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Well, she apparently was very, very miffed with them for those backing vocals, those brilliantly deadpan backing vocals. She's a femme fatale. Because she was going no, it is pronounced femme, fem, fam fatah. Why are you singing fem fatal? It's fun. She was really, really annoyed. They're like now we're gonna sing it how we want. That's what it says on the page. Shut up and brilliant she's a femme fatah I love you.
Speaker 2:The back of the call and response is just brilliant so good and steve, steve why is this a shoe-in for all tomorrow's parties?
Speaker 1:for you.
Speaker 4:Because it sounds like the Velvet Underground being Fairport Convention. It sounds so Fairport Convention. It sounds like Nico is fronting Fairport. It has this beautiful English folky lilt to it and it makes me genuinely sad for the person I'm listening about. It's like the flip side of like a rolling stone. Like a rolling stones are really biting.
Speaker 4:How will you feel when you've been, when, when no one fancies you anymore and you're shit? Um, whereas this is like, oh man, what's she gonna wear at all the parties in the future? Because you know, I mean, obviously it's a metaphor rather than literal, but it's like it's. It just makes me really sad and and it's just that I love that lilting, weirdly english sounding melody and I love the way she sings it. I mean, I I find her vocal quite hard to take seriously because of the incredibly strange pronunciation in general, but I find it really moving on all tomorrow's parties. So it's not even even in discussion for me. It's like my in my top three things on this album and I'm not an eco fan well, I mean I, I yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 2:I think I'd like her three vocals. I think they give it some shape and some sparkle and some yeah and some difference. But I think three is the perfect amount for her to appear on this album, otherwise it would dominate too much. I think it's just about. It's the right amount of stardust without overwhelming.
Speaker 1:So it is interesting that the contribution she makes do you think that um any of these nico songs wouldn't have been better if lou reed had sung them like? Do you? Do you wish that? Maybe lou re Reed had sung all of them, not these two.
Speaker 4:I think the subject matter for these two really suits her, I think Sunday Morning. I'm glad he did it, it would have worked. You can hear that it was written for her, but I think that paranoid style of lyric suits him better, whereas I think these stories about a sad woman are best sung by this icicle queen quite sad looking woman. I think it just works. Also, shout out to John Cale's amazing droning piano on Altamira's Parties, which is again something Altamira's Parties, which is again something Altamira's Parties. Yeah, His piano that never changes. This rolling, drone-like piano in the background is so great.
Speaker 4:So great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he does a lot of great stuff, doesn't he? Multi-instrumentalist, I mean, he just adds the whole flavouring for the whole band, doesn't he? It really does Incredible stuff yeah. But, they're both, but him and he and Lou Reed both love drones like drones in music, and I think Mo Tucker, the drummer as well, was very much into certain types of. Oh.
Speaker 4:I love a drone. I love a drone.
Speaker 2:We love to drone on, don't we? So it's perfect for us. That's why.
Speaker 1:I like you so we've got a tied pairing, one each for Femme Fatale and All Tomorrow's Parties, and I've got the deciding vote yeah, it's obviously obviously All Tomorrow's Parties.
Speaker 5:It's it's Moody, it's got that folky.
Speaker 4:Lovely lilt to it. It's got Cage's piano. It's about Sedgwick Femme.
Speaker 2:Fatale would sit really nicely on that playlist you've got with Sunday Morning, that's it that's all he can come up with.
Speaker 4:I've literally just listed four good reasons, and he's saying it would go well on a playlist.
Speaker 2:Well, he needs a third track because he's got Sunday Morning Making Pancakes by the Kinks. Now he needs a third track, just in case he wants to put a bit of honey on them or something that's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um come on of course it's going to be all tomorrow's parties of course it is
Speaker 1:so you've got all tomorrow's parties is like one of the uh psychedelic, uh drone tracks, isn't it? But it's sung by nico, so the others on the album were all sung by lou reed, and for me it would be a much better. It, reed, and for me it would be a much better. It's a great song. I think it would be a much better song if Lou Reed took the vocals on this as well. That said, I do much prefer it to Femme Fatale, so it wasn't really that close for me, I'm afraid, brett.
Speaker 4:Can I take you up on your terminology though, Because I think that? Yeah, take him up on it, because he's not voting for my song as glad as I am that you voted for that and you can't go back on it now if I offend you.
Speaker 2:No, Dave, you can. You can always go back. He's very offensive sometimes. He really can't rescind that vote.
Speaker 4:I'm not sure about using the term psychedelic for anything here. I know what you mean, but they hated psychedelia. They hated psychedelic drugs what did they hate?
Speaker 2:they probably hated guitars, songs, recording processes.
Speaker 4:German singers foisted upon them everything you know, but it's I don't know. I think it's lots of things.
Speaker 1:I take your point. What I would say to them is they don't get to label their music. We do, and given what was coming out in the 60s with the sort of Pink Floyd, Piper at the Gates of Dawn style, long rambling psychedelic, Well, call it what you will, but like heavy guitar, almost improvisation.
Speaker 4:It's of that ilk and therefore I I think we should dig Lou Reed up and say fuck you, Lou Reed, you don't get to categorise your music. 50-year-old men, middle-aged British men, on podcasts which you haven't even heard of, because we're not 50 yet. 50-ish, late 40s, mid to late 40s, mid 40s.
Speaker 5:Early 40s Men in their early 40s Looking good.
Speaker 4:Could be. We'll categorise your music on podcasts. That's what matters.
Speaker 1:Fuck you, Lou Reed, you don't get to decide. Fuck you.
Speaker 2:Lou Reed, yeah, yeah that's good, we've sorted that out. It's just a perfect day it's taking a turn. It's taking a dark turn, dave move yourself, dave, is channeling his his velvet underground character okay, I think I suppose what, what?
Speaker 2:what he would argue is because psychodeal is lumped in with this kind of day glow, lsd trippiness which has got this real technicolor vibe to it. They are like the most monochrome wearing dark glasses beatnik band you can ever imagine. I think they're far more. They would consider themselves far more influenced by literary influences and the avant-garde beat poetry is very much, so all of that, so they would they would reject this kind of shiny sergeant peppersy uh yes, colorful technicolor psychedelia.
Speaker 4:Yeah, this yeah I think that's really important as well, because psychedelic lyrics so for example, something like lucy in the sky with diamond that's a diamond is a great example of what people would categorize as psychedelic lyrics. And lou reed's whole thing was beat.
Speaker 5:Poetry bakowski um delmore schwartz was his guy, wasn't he Gritty gritty?
Speaker 2:part of life.
Speaker 4:yeah, Gritty, like straight up. This is what I saw on the street today there's a homeless dude, there's a heroin needle, there's some disgusting litter. This is really smelly, you know. You stink, I stink, you know. And that, whereas psychedelia was much more surreal, and flowers and weirdness, okay well, it might be me.
Speaker 1:It probably is me um what how would you describe? Is this like hair metal?
Speaker 4:all over again.
Speaker 1:You want me to explain what hair metal is I'm going down a hair metal cul-de-sac again. Um, how would you describe then the uh, the kind of late 60s heavy guitar rock? Um, like weirdness garage rock no, but like you know, the um, like uh, interstellar overdrive, something like that, which is which is the early pink floyd kind of almost improvisation, it goes discordant, they just play on and it's about eight minutes long and and I'm trying to think of other examples, but that kind of stuff that you get on this album as well, how would you, how would you label that?
Speaker 4:I, I'm, I'm mostly just giving you shit. Your point stands. I mean, yes, I think floyd get labeled as psychedelic. I don't think they would have labeled themselves particularly psychedelic, but they were. But again, the thing is, if you listen, sound wise, your points stands. But if you listen to some of that floyd stuff whatever lyrics there are are definitely not bakowski style street poetry about.
Speaker 4:You know the specifics of a guy doing a heroin deal. They're like oh, set the controls for the heart of the sun. Oh, you know, it's like that. So that's psychedelic where the velvets aren't. And also even the fashion. If you look at the pictures, we're talking about sid barrett taking lsd, so you got the drugs. That's psychedelic where the velvets aren't. And also even the fashion. If you look at the pictures, we're talking about Sid Barrett taking LSD, so you've got the drugs. That's psychedelic, the influence of those drugs. And also they're wearing floral shirts and frilly things, whereas the velvets are wearing leather and dark glasses and taking speed and heroin, which is like the least psychedelic thing ever. So your point does stand about some of the sonics, but everything else ie the fashion and the lyrics and the rest of the aesthetic and how they look is is totally anti-psychedelic. But I take your point on the on the noise if that's one of the best.
Speaker 1:Well, that's one of the best answers I've ever given on the car and if, um, if, if we are, if it's not just me if we, if people generally, are labelling this, that kind of sonic as psychedelic, then maybe we should relabel it as like experimental rock or something, because yeah, I'd say it's garage rock.
Speaker 3:It's garage rock with experimental elements doesn't make me right, but that's what I would call it yeah okay, yeah go on brett what I want.
Speaker 2:Actually, if I was going to have a go at this, let's categorize everything. I'd just say it's f on guard rock, isn't it? It's it's totally, because it does have lashings of everything and they you know, the shows they were involved in, like the factory shows, were full of loads of light shows and things like which, again, is something that that is true, which is very Pink Floyd and very psychedelic.
Speaker 2:But you know, again, they're not controlling that, they're just shoved in because they're like this is an opportunity, let's play with Andy Warhol. And that's the reason why they started wearing sunglasses all the time on stage and look so fucking cool. It's because, literally, the lights were so bright, they bright, they had to wear sunglasses. So that's great. You know, that's where the legend comes from. Just something so practical. Yeah, just because they had to do it. So it's interesting. Yeah, I'd say. I'd say they wouldn't describe themselves, they wouldn't want to associate, they'd associate the word psychedelic with summer of love, which is could not be.
Speaker 1:I like that label avant-garde, I think, for the rest of this episode I'm gonna going to change my label to Avant Garde Rock AGR. We call it AGR, AGR.
Speaker 2:M-O-R, A-O-R and A-V-R.
Speaker 4:Also, there's a sunglasses lesson for us all here, kids, because we all accuse rock stars of being dicks and wearing sunglasses all the time. But now you know, we know that Bono latterly, we found out that Bono wears them because he's got macular degeneration in his eyes and the sun upsets him. And we know that what's? The chap from ELO called Jeff Lynn? We know that Jeff Lynn wears them Brett's put some on now.
Speaker 2:Only pretentious wankers do it. Jeff, no, no, jeff Lynn wears them because he's shy, and now we know that the Velvet's wore them, so let's not judge rock stars for their sartorial sunglasses and I'm wearing them now because I'm in the summer in South America like some bastard that's escaped the winter.
Speaker 4:He's flexing again.
Speaker 2:Did I mention it? Did I mention? No, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4:Yes, you did. We are here in Storm, whatever it's called. Right, we're here in England in the dark between two two count them named storms and you're in fucking Buenos Aires.
Speaker 3:I've put my normal specs back on and continue to mention it.
Speaker 4:Thank you, Roy.
Speaker 2:Crowbarred that in. We did get talking about sunglasses. Dave, bring us back.
Speaker 1:We're at the end of round one, and the end of round one is Are we Jeez I?
Speaker 2:thought this was going to be a quick one.
Speaker 1:We are, and the last pairing in the end of round one takes a dark turn. It's the Black Angel Death Song against European Sun.
Speaker 5:Come again, choose to go. And if epiphanies, terror reduced you To shame, have your head bobbed and weaved, choose a side To be on. And if the stone glances on, oh these are the last two tracks on the album.
Speaker 2:This is where they get, as this is. I mean, if we're talking about avant-garde rock, this is where they get, as I mean, if we're talking call them avant-garde rock, this is where they get very avant-garde.
Speaker 4:So we've started. You have to really put the work in. You have to want to listen to this.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is like, yeah, you finish it, you go oh, wow, I've done most of it now, haven't I?
Speaker 4:I'll listen to the whole thing.
Speaker 1:We've kind of completed our journey here from sunday morning, opening the album as light and fluffy as it gets to finishing on the black angel death song and european sun, which are as avant-garde rock as it gets oh, totally.
Speaker 2:I mean european sun starts off, kind of listenable for the first minute and then it's just like, ah, fuck you. I mean you can just hear them going. Yeah, let's fucking go for it on this one. They just like making as almost impenetrable as possible.
Speaker 4:I think we missed the trick back in the day because back back in the day what we used to do was, uh, put various things on the on the jukebox. We talked about this before and obviously, obviously, one of the things we used to do was put heroin on the jukebox in the pub and sit in the corner going hee, hee, hee. You know, when the hideous viola part came in the middle, obviously we missed the trick. If we'd known European Sun better, we would have put European Sun on, or Sister Rafe the next time, all 16 minutes of it but you know, we didn't know.
Speaker 2:It's not bad. I thing about those decisions on the jukebox is you would try and choose stuff to get your money's worth.
Speaker 3:I remember I used to put Riders on the Storm on a lock to 7 minutes.
Speaker 2:Well, we put Freebird and.
Speaker 4:Riders on the Storm on to get our money's worth, and then the one with the Nirvana secret hidden track on it to piss people off and confuse people with the silence, and then Heroin was just to upset people which it did.
Speaker 2:It's a good way to spend 50p back in the 90s.
Speaker 4:It is we didn't have the internet, we had to do these type of things you got to enjoy the song, which we did actually enjoy, and enjoy watching people's faces as they got more and more irritated because they couldn't listen to Phil Collins. Absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 2:Double win, double whammy, yeah yeah, so it's a tricky one. Um, I'm gonna vote for a european son just because it's so utterly obnoxious and it's just a black angel's death song.
Speaker 4:Because I can't. I can't cope with no, I couldn, I couldn't listen to it again.
Speaker 2:I can vote for it, but I couldn't listen to a European sign again. I can get about four minutes in and I'm like, oh, for fuck's sake, dave, what are you voting for?
Speaker 4:They've both got a horrible noise on them. One's got the noise of like it's like opening the world's largest Pepsi.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Like shh.
Speaker 4:And then the other one. Isn't it blowing in the mic, I think?
Speaker 2:I think that's I think that's black europe, black angel, death song and then, and then, and then european sun.
Speaker 4:At one point there's an enormous smash and it turns out that that's john kale throwing a chair on a pile of plates. It's like, of course it is.
Speaker 1:I mean, obviously, what you're voting for slim pickings around here. I'm with you, steve. This is a clear one for me. Black Angel Death Song Right, so that concludes round one. Black Angel Death Song goes through to one. Yes, and we're into round two and, as planned, we have the top of round two loaded with those proto-punk, uh lou reed songs and the bottom of round two loaded with avant-garde rock. So, um, that said, at the top of round two we have sunday morning up against run, run, run.
Speaker 5:And I'm falling.
Speaker 3:I've got a feeling I don't want to know.
Speaker 5:Early dawn. See that bear Said on the day I saw my soul Must be saved. Gonna, take a walk Down Union Square. You never know. I said on stage I saw my soul must be saved. Gonna, take a walk down Union Square. You never know, we're gonna find there. You gotta run, run, run, run, run. Take the jacket too. Run, run, run, run, run. Jim's a dead for you. Hey, what you do.
Speaker 4:Easy Sunday morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean Run, run, run is kind of like their attempt at a single really. I mean it's not as good as Chas and Dave's Run Rabbit Run, but it is good.
Speaker 4:What is?
Speaker 2:Nothing.
Speaker 1:Doesn't it sound very dylan-esque?
Speaker 2:yeah it does. Yeah, it's got. It's a peak restaurant. It's running through the city looking for drugs, drug characters and all that. Yeah, um, it's, yeah, it's probably this album it sounds like a lot of 60s bands yeah, it does it. This, this they used to be in a band called uh. They were called first the primitives, then the warlocks, and this, this kind of remind this I could imagine being released by the warlocks, as they previously were, but it's it's less, possibly, it's less velvet, underground maybe, than some of the other songs.
Speaker 4:Um, yeah, apart from the lyric which is, I think, suffers because it would be. You know, I've been talking about gypsy Death, which is like a death from an overdose and all this stuff, and it's like it would be shocking in its boundary, pushing subject matter, if we hadn't already had I'm Waiting for the man. So it suffers lyrically in comparison to something that's already happened, which is I'm Waiting for the man, and it suffers musically in sounding a bit conventionally like an attempt or heroin, yeah other other, uh, no, no, I mean musically, sort of sounds like a lot of the
Speaker 2:60s bands, which is which is not what the velma underground are about well, and possibly the fact this, this was like recorded in four days, wasn't it? So production isn't going to be. I mean the sound. This record is amazing, given it probably wasn't spent a lot of money I think it was $3,000 spent on the recording of it, so Run Run Run could probably be a lot better if it was recorded better.
Speaker 4:Well, you saved the production. So, very briefly, andy Warhol is credited as the producer, do you? Know what he did in his producing role.
Speaker 1:Nothing apart from insist that there was a peel off sticker on the.
Speaker 2:That.
Speaker 4:He paid for the sessions and he paid for it. That's even more important. That's how he got that credit, that's it.
Speaker 1:Banana paid for the sessions. Who is the producer, then, on this album?
Speaker 4:Do you know what? No one ever talks about it. I assume that it's just.
Speaker 4:A producer is a very nebulous sort of role that isn't very well defined it's whoever's sort of in charge of the operation and can be anything from super, super hands-on to super, super hands-off. So arguably he's a producer to an extent, in that he sort of gave him ideas for songs and put someone in and and drove the aesthetic. But really I guess you know it's an engineer and some people in a room just making the songs and arguably he probably was the producer. You know you, you it's, you can make an album musical director.
Speaker 4:Maybe we'll call him the musical director yeah, but it's like I said last time, I call him, yeah, okay, yeah, because he on.
Speaker 1:He insisted. Nico was on it, didn't he? And he uh. Sunday morning he said why, why don't you write a song about paranoia? And that was it. And then it lou right reed wrote a song about paranoia and what that was to him, and it came out on sunday morning.
Speaker 4:But apart from that, you're right, he wasn't fiddling with the controls in the same way that george martin was no but you can, you can have, you can have producers that very, you know, very backseaty, like, like the difference between on our previous episode obviously we were talking about Nirvana's Nevermind, you know, butch Vig was like an Uber producer, whereas they then switched to Steve Albini for a new throw, who was literally, as I said, on the episode. He just sort of turns up and goes right, everybody plug in. I'm sticking a microphone in the middle of the room, play the song, and you know so. So he's, you know so, really the engineer's in charge, because the engineer will set up all the stuff. But it's just, you know he just yeah warhol's doing.
Speaker 2:what I suppose, is that one of the big jobs of the producer, which is to kind of control the emotions of the band, to cohere them, to bring them together, to be this focal point for everyone to go okay, we're gonna're going to get this album made. But he just did nothing of what most people would expect, as in sitting in the control room and going, oh yeah, put the treble up on that, oh yeah, let's slap a bit of reverb on it.
Speaker 1:He did nothing, none of that he wasn't bothered about that.
Speaker 2:I don't think he'd see that as necessary for him.
Speaker 4:That. That's like a minor detail, so, but I think there are other producers that have produced less than him, I think I think history is almost kind of harsh in a way, because producing can mean 100 different things, and he actually did quite a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh, this album, yeah, it wouldn't have happened without him.
Speaker 4:No, no, I don't know who's gonna sign?
Speaker 2:who's gonna sign a band that write songs called heroin and waiting for their drug dealer and things like that?
Speaker 4:well, no one. I mean Armin Ettingen from Armin Ettingen, who was huge because he was the Atlantic Records guy I know it's not a very well known name, but he was that's Crosby, stills and Nash who was like the biggest album in 1969.
Speaker 1:He's Led Zeppelin biggest album in 69, you know.
Speaker 4:Aretha Franklin. Do you know what I meanlantic records? And he literally looked at the sleeve, didn't listen to a single bit of music. Looked at the sleeve when they were touting around the first version of it and said heroin, no, I'm not interested in that, don't do drug songs. And he didn't even listen to the music because he's like I'm not. You've put me off, sorry yeah, um so yeah, well, they weren't helping themselves with some of that stuff, whereas warhol was. So you know, fair, fairfax.
Speaker 1:So, steve, you said Fairfax indeed, yeah. Fairfax, fairfax. Steve, you said obviously Sunday morning against. It's up against Run, run, run. Brett, would you agree Easily?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's first on my playlist. It's Sunday morning, definitely. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's first on my playlist on a sunday morning, while I'm making pancakes as well, so I'll only listen on a tuesday afternoon, though. Yeah, I'll only listen on a tuesday afternoon yeah, to make me remember, I mean sunday yeah, it's a lovely day, isn't?
Speaker 2:it. It's a lovely day, isn't it?
Speaker 1:something you've got to love it so um brian eno did a song called thursday afternoon which is 60 minutes long, and it is a good listen on a thursday. I'll tell you that it gets you through. There isn't really a Tuesday afternoon song is there. I'm trying to think what's on my Tuesday afternoon playlist.
Speaker 4:Can we get away from the playlists?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, the literal playlists yeah.
Speaker 4:We're not doing ourselves favours with our playlist chat OK.
Speaker 1:What's your favourite day of the week?
Speaker 2:listener and what song represents it the best? Take it away.
Speaker 1:Let's rock. Sunday Morning goes through 3-0. On to the next pairing in round two, and that is there she Goes Again against. I'm waiting for the man there she goes again.
Speaker 5:She's out on the streets again. She's down on her knees, my friend, but you know she'll never ask you please again. Now take a look. There's no tears in her eyes. She won't take it from just any guy. What can you do? You see her walking on down the street. I'm waiting for my man, $26 in my hand Up to Lexington. 125 Feel sick and dirty, more dead than alive. I'm waiting for my man.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm waiting for the man. It's uber classic Velvets, isn't it? So I mean it's a great story. It really paints the picture I think, I'm gonna go with.
Speaker 2:I'm waiting for the man. I also I'm not sure about the lyrics on uh, there she goes again. Really, what? What it's what it's about. Yeah, I'm not sure about that aspect of it. What it's about really. So, I mean, whereas I'm waiting for the man, we know what that's about. That's a really yes, that takes you to a place at a time, um, and it transports you, doesn't it? It's a great bit of storytelling. So I'm waiting for the man.
Speaker 1:It's my vote, mine too, and mine as well, there we go, three nil okay, we're into the second half of round two and that starts with All Tomorrow's Parties against Venus in Furs.
Speaker 6:For tomorrow's parties.
Speaker 3:For.
Speaker 6:Thursday's chime, this Sunday's clown, for whom none will go mourning shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather with flash girl.
Speaker 5:Child in the dark comes in. Bells, your servant, don't forsake him. In the dark Comes and bells, your servant, don't forsake him. Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart.
Speaker 2:Oh, easily, venus in Furs. It's an absolute stone-cold classic. It has to be.
Speaker 4:I have very, very strong feelings about Venus in Furs. Oh, tell us, how does that surprise me? It's so unusual for you to have strong feelings about something. I know. I knew you'd be shocked by that. You're such a sanguine chaff. I't believe it, but god, I thought I would foreground it because it's quite a moment. Okay, drum roll. Do you know what sort of views they are?
Speaker 2:I would imagine you hate it have a very specific reason why you hate it I love.
Speaker 1:I know what venus is about is about. Is it about its subject matter?
Speaker 4:Well, what's it about, Dave? You tell us what it's about while we're here before I reveal my strong feeling that I've never had before.
Speaker 1:It's exciting Venus in Furs. I do know that the music is great, but the lyrics are dodgy because it's inspired. It's inspired by an 1870 novel about BDSM, written by some pale Austrian guy with a boner what does the lyrics are dodgy mean?
Speaker 4:it's like the first time in the history of rock you've got everyone in the 60s going ooh, sex, drugs and rock and roll and not writing about it, and you get a guy come along and actually writes about bdsm. That's not dodgy, that's fucking great. I'm giving myself away now this is one of the greatest
Speaker 4:records ever made. Because, well, firstly, if you listen to Run, run, run or something, it sounds like the 60s, this could have been recorded yesterday, 10 years from now, in the future, 50 years ago, 60, 70. I mean it's completely timeless. It sounds like nothing else. The the, the atmosphere it creates, I mean it literally. You've what. You know, if you listen to it, you can't not be oh, in a dark club in a basement with nothing but red lighting, with weird shit happening in the dark.
Speaker 3:You know it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4:You could be standing in the middle of alicante, in spain, by the sea, with the sun shining on you. Venus in first comes on. You're in that basement. That's just the way it is.
Speaker 4:The viola is to die, for it's the best use of a yeah, it's the base use of a, of a drone sort of instrument in in rock music. I can think of um instrument in in rock music. I can think of um. Everything about it is great. It's just one of the most atmospheric records I've ever heard. Uh, I love everything about it. I love the melody. I think the melody's great. I think the lyrics amazing. Yeah, the playing, the atmosphere, his vocal, everything. It's one of my favorite songs we've ever talked about on this podcast. I completely adore it.
Speaker 2:So my prediction was right you hate it, Gotcha.
Speaker 4:I hate it yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I wonder what you're voting for then. What's it up?
Speaker 1:against Dave. Well, it's up against Awesome Ice Parties by Nico, which I love which is probably my second or third.
Speaker 4:Yeah, slash Nico second or third favourite. Slash Nico second or third favourite thing on the album. But yeah, it has to be Venus in Furs. It has to be Venus in Furs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are you voting for, dave? I think you've already voted for it, haven't you?
Speaker 1:Brett.
Speaker 2:I have, and I would third that Venus in Furs.
Speaker 1:I voted for it's not even close for me. Oh no, sorry, it's not up against Femme Fatale, which I was looking down at my sheet, which is shit. Automarist Parties. I agree with you, steve. Actually that is also one of my favourite things on the album. But yes, venus in Furs, definitely I agree, it's great 3-0.
Speaker 2:It's just so good. It's very, very, very strong okay.
Speaker 1:so we have one more semi-final spot up for grabs, and that is going to be between the Black Angel death song and, for the first time, heroin, not an old city street in these garnishes and one of his brothers walked off through the night with his hair in his face, long, long split, the cut from the knives, a beauty.
Speaker 5:I don't know just where I'm going, but I'm gonna try for the kingdom, if I can Cos. It makes me feel like I'm a man when I put a spike into my vein and I tell you things aren't easy. Heroin, oh heroin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's got to be Heroin, hasn't it?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, there's no way Heroin's not going through, that's easy. So let's say something about the Black Angel of Death song before it goes. It's not amazing. The thing I like about it is that at least he has the grace to admit that it was written without any sense of meaning. It was just written lyric wise to piece a bunch of words together that sounded good, and it's rare that a lyricist of his pretension and or quality or intent will admit that he really is just playing with words for the sake of the sounds they basically just. Which syllable forms sound best in these gaps was the game they were playing, which doesn't make for um stunning listening, but there you go well
Speaker 1:but didn't bob dylan engage in that kind of activity? Wildly all the time yeah and does that necessarily make it unenjoyable? I I would say that the Black Angel Death song I know that heroin is very famous and a lot of people would argue, very important, but I would say that the Well I find the Black Angel Death song really, I'm going to say, even more enjoyable than heroin and you love yourself a bit of heroin, don't?
Speaker 4:you. Dave, that is true ok, so hang on, I think. Give me a lyric from Black Angel Death Song that has stuck with you, that you like.
Speaker 1:I'm interested now well, I'm looking at them, so I'm cheating. I think it's great, I'm interested now. Well, I'm looking at them, so I'm cheating. What are you? I think it's great. I love that I was listening to it today and, despite what sounds like a thing that a train does when it arrives at the station and goes, oh yeah, that's a nice sound.
Speaker 4:That is a nice sound.
Speaker 1:I don't like that, I don't like like that.
Speaker 2:but I do like everything else about it.
Speaker 4:Oh okay, there we go alright, I'm going to push back quite hard on the Bob Dylan point right now. I would be the first person to say that I think a lot of Dylan's lyrics are over poured upon, you know, but people sort of sit down and go, oh, what does this mean? What does this mean? What does this mean? And a lot of the time it it is wordplay for wordplay's sake. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna read you a bit of it.
Speaker 4:So right now I'm only bleeding right, because this is one that he talks about oh, but that's a great song yes, but the point is it doesn't mean anything obvious, but poetically it's incredible, it's amazing yes, but you, you can't say to me that it means anything obvious. You can't say to me well, this is the meaning or this is what it's about or it's a story about this, but Black Angel Death Song is genuinely just the sound of the words. So I would say with Dylan what I'm about to read you is just the sound of the words, but fuck me if it doesn't sound like 50 times more poetic than Black Angel.
Speaker 1:Death Song. Yeah, it does. I agree with you.
Speaker 4:I don't even need to read it, then it's alright, mar, I'm Only.
Speaker 1:Bleeding is like an all-time classic.
Speaker 4:Yes, but you can't argue that. It's like it isn't just wordplay. It is just wordplay, but it's several, several notches of wordplay above Black Angel's Death Song.
Speaker 1:For me, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:But then some rap music is wordplay, but that also sounds amazing. It can do, but I think I think it can. Um, you know some, sometimes you can be making a point, sometimes you can be, not I, I. I just don't think the dylan analogy works for me. I think I think it's several notches above. When, when dylan, you know, I mean fine, when you get to things like Wiggle Wiggle, which is not Bob Dylan's finest moment in the 90s, as discussed previously, then yeah fine, then he really is just floundering around. But it's sort of classic top-end 60s Dylan. Even when it's just wordplay, it feels like it means something. And Black Angels' Death Song doesn't feel like it means anything to me.
Speaker 2:OK, no, that was a quiz. That was on the Blood on the Tracks episode. Is it Dylan or is it Bobbins? I am not your stepchild being our favourite song.
Speaker 4:I am not your stepchild. Very listenable, surprisingly listenable for something with such a mad title.
Speaker 1:That was episode 45.
Speaker 2:Oh there you go this is good. Good, we're plugging the back catalog. Now it finally works out after 50 episodes.
Speaker 1:Let's start plugging some of the other episodes, because I'll be fucking surprised everyone's getting through this one jeez crikey so so heroine takes the last spot in the semi-finals, and that means that we have, in the first semi-final, sunday morning against I'm waiting for the man, and in the second semi-final we have the avant-garde rock pairing venus infers against heroin. Yeah, the first semi-final is sunday morning against I'm waiting for the man.
Speaker 2:It's a pretty yeah, it's challenging, actually it's actually you get to the semi-final and there's just very strong songs left here. Well, you've got, you've got. I mean, dave has been masterful in the way he's arranged us to kind of get the more poppy end of the Velvet Underground experience to be in one semi-final, and then that avant-garde, searing, dissonant, cool, outsider thing in the other semi-final and then the avant-garde, searing, dissonant, cool, outsider thing in the other semi-final. So what's more poppy and what's more cooler and outsider? That's what I'm going to be judging this on from now on all right, I'm, I'm gonna, uh, I'm gonna ruin.
Speaker 4:If you haven't already heard it, possibly ruin. Uh, I'm waiting for the man, though, because have you? Have you heard the demo that they did of it a year before the album was recorded?
Speaker 5:No, because that is in a shall we say different style, different vibe.
Speaker 4:Which is do you want to guess which genre that's in?
Speaker 3:Doo-wop. Can we listen to it?
Speaker 1:It's not doo-wop, that's an excellent call, because we know that Lou loves doo-wop.
Speaker 4:It's not. Come on you. That's an excellent call, because we know that Lou loves Doo-Wop. It's not, Come on, you've got to guess the genre first. Tell me to play it. What would be the most? Yes, I do, but just give us a sec, although I don't know quite how to find it, but we'll find it in a second Genre. I find it on YouTube.
Speaker 2:Okay, what genre do you think Surf pop?
Speaker 4:No, still far too appropriate. What would be really, really inappropriate for the Velvet Underground Jazz?
Speaker 2:Getting closer, but no Getting closer, in that it's less appropriate. Oh, okay.
Speaker 4:What would Lou Reed hate? If you think about Lou Reed, what sort of genre of American music would he least like?
Speaker 2:Country.
Speaker 3:Absolutely bloody right.
Speaker 5:Let's play it. Let's play it Up to Lexington. One, two, five. If you're sick and dirty, more dead than alive.
Speaker 3:I'm waiting for the man. Hey white boy, what?
Speaker 5:you doing uptown, hey white boy? What you doing uptown, hey white boy?
Speaker 1:You're just not around, it sounds like the sort of track that you give to Ringo to sing. It does, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It sounds like something that the Rowlings would have been on Exile on Main Street.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it does a little bit, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, I like it. I mean mean, I was gonna vote for sunday morning until just because of the smell of dave's pancakes, but now I'm gonna vote for. I'm waiting for the man this is great.
Speaker 1:No, it really survives. It, doesn't it? It does? Doesn't it, it really does?
Speaker 2:yeah, oh it's great. Yeah, no, I really like it, I'm voting for.
Speaker 4:I'm waiting it.
Speaker 2:It really does yeah, oh, it's great. Yeah, no, I really like it. I'm voting for. I'm waiting for the man I'll leave up to you two I'm voting for sunday morning, but there's, it's, it's a.
Speaker 4:There's a nothing in it for me here, but I'm gonna go sunday morning, yeah because it is well we know what day he's voting for otherwise he's got his fucks.
Speaker 1:He's weak up, hasn't he?
Speaker 2:let has to make his pancakes and went for the man. He can't do that.
Speaker 4:Right, so Sunday morning's going through then. So let's talk about I'm Waiting for the man then, because we haven't really talked about it yet.
Speaker 2:No, it's a song about essentially drug deals and trying to get a score.
Speaker 4:A drug deal? Yeah, yeah, but which someone pointed out? They were like if it's autobiographical. Someone on a podcast the other day said if he lived in the village at the time because I think he was living in the village around Annie Warhol it's like there were definitely drugs available there. So why would you know?
Speaker 4:it's like he was very dedicated to getting a good deal, to go all the way up to Harlem, where it's really inappropriate for him to be in Harlem. And clearly from the song he's getting a lot of stick for being in a completely all black neighbourhood trying to score drugs. So it's like so someone was sort of saying you know something along the lines of you know, he's really dedicated to getting a good deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the song should be I like drugs, but I want them at 25% discount yes, also, the drug dealer has an excellent hat.
Speaker 4:Okay, which? What type of hat's he wearing? The I can't remember the drug dealer. The drug dealer's wearing, like, some sort of ridiculously inappropriate hat for a drug dealer. I think it's a big straw hat is it a big straw? Hat it is, it is nice a fez would have been an excellent choice, though, yes, for a drug dealer PR shoes and a big straw hat.
Speaker 1:Big straw hat, he's all dressed in black.
Speaker 4:I just want you to imagine that, right? So we've gone to Harlem. Let's just picture this. We've gone to Harlem and I'm going to see my drug dealer. We know that my drug dealer is black because everybody in Harlem is black, except Lou Reed, who's gone up for this drug deal. Okay, so so my blood, my drug dealer is black.
Speaker 4:He's wearing black he's a drug dealer. Now let's imagine the big straw hat. So the police are driving along and they're like, oh, you know, which one do you think's the drug dealer? It's like, well, it could be the one on the corner, it could be the one dressed in like all in black, because that's kind of a cool sort of drug, or it could be the one with the massive straw hat on, and do you?
Speaker 5:know what.
Speaker 4:I think it's probably a disguise, because he is the least likely of all the people on the street to be the drug dealer because of the ridiculous sartorial head choice.
Speaker 2:He looks like he's just come up from somewhere else.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he's been farming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's been farming. It's a great disguise.
Speaker 4:It's a great disguise. It's a disguise, it's a disguise.
Speaker 2:I realised. I'm glad we've talked it out. I've realised that's what he was doing. He's disguising himself. That's what it is. Yeah Well, it's a cracker, but it's up against Sunday morning, isn't it so?
Speaker 1:And the second semi-final is Venus in furs against Heroin.
Speaker 3:Wow, these are two female hero.
Speaker 4:I know which way I'm going to vote, but it's going to really make me sad.
Speaker 2:It is as Harry Hill said. The problem with Heroin is it's very Moorish.
Speaker 4:It's very Moorish, isn't it? He's just never quite full.
Speaker 2:Very Moorish. Um, yeah, I mean, it's just such an extraordinarily outrageous lyric, is it? I mean, this is 1966, he wrote this heroin I mean they're both extraordinary lyrics. I mean venus averse, based on a book yeah, yeah exactly heroin. But heroin, like I, put a spark into my vein. I mean, mean, I was just weirdly. I was just when we broke for the semifinals to get a drink and I was just humming the tune to heroin. I kind of gave it a bit of a swing. I was just imagining singing you know, heroin.
Speaker 2:You know, with a little bit of swing it's just like you realise when you add something like that to it. The saccharine to it what. Just how extraordinary the lyrics are.
Speaker 1:They're, you know just. Has any rock song ever been that explicitly clear? At one point, mo Tucker says she stops drumming because the noise that was being created was so like avant-garde. Shall we say that she had no idea where they were in the song? Wow, no, and she's out.
Speaker 4:She's she's massively out of time in places and the thing is she's required to speed up and slow down because, because, because the song is is trying to replicate the rush of heroin. You know so, so, so it, you know so. So, as well as being, you know, uh, really specific in the lyrics about it, they're trying to recreate it musically. And she's all over the shop because she can't hear, or because she's speeding up and slowing down deliberately.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's, it's an incredible thing.
Speaker 1:It's amazing um, yeah it's amazing when all the guitars had just lost rhythm and all the sense of place and they were just too loud to work out what was going on. So she says she stopped expecting that they would all stop because she'd stopped, but they all just carried on. So she just started playing again wow so there's this gap where the drums stop, all the guitars carry on and then she starts coming in again. That's incredible which is just yeah, and then it just got released like that but that's perfect.
Speaker 2:I mean, it is chaos. A life with heroin in it is total chaos.
Speaker 4:So it's like it's always so fitting that this song is that chaotic, you know but also, I think, coming back to your point about you know, has anything else been this specific? I mean, there are so many songs, uh, some utterly wonderful songs out there about, about, heroin. One of my favorite songs ever as a song by, uh, spiritualized um, which is um I forgot the title for a minute. It's one of your favorite songs.
Speaker 5:You can't remember what it's called steve it's one of those song things, one of those songs it's called I think I'm in love and that that's.
Speaker 4:That is one of the, and that's just one of those songs it's called. I think I'm in love and that's that is one of the and that's just one of the greatest songs I've ever heard, and that that's very obviously a song about heroin. And, and you know, perfect day by Lou Reed himself is about heroin. There's so many of them knocking about songs by early songs they're called.
Speaker 2:I think they've got their figurative, they have metaphor. This is literally the most ugly, stark, brightly lit neon light. You know?
Speaker 1:monochrome version like so grainy, it's just the most ugly picture, but it's it's extraordinary like put songs about other drugs that are as as um specific. Aren't they like specifically cocaine?
Speaker 4:that's true. But cocaine is a is a party drug and therefore you end up with a kind of party apart. Even something like cocaine by um jj kale, which clapton then then covered is, is you know? Yes, it's kind of an anti-coke song but it's still upbeat enough that you don't feel dragged down by it.
Speaker 4:But Brett's right, compared to all the other, all heroin songs have a slightly metaphorical nature to them, and some you wouldn't know it was a heroin song, like Perfect Day, for example, unless you were told Golden Brown, perfect example, which is actually relatively specific because it's sort of the colour of the crystals and everything, but you have to be told to know it, Whereas this, as you say, is so direct and also it deals with both sides of it, because on the one hand he feels like Jesus' son and on the other hand he's right on the edge of death. You know it'll be the death of me and all this stuff. So it's not trying to say it's good or bad or anything, it's just this is me taking heroin and I'm just hitting you straight with it?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's, it's. It's incredibly stark, brutal, yeah, yeah are we?
Speaker 1:are we talking about it because it's about to go out to?
Speaker 2:yes, it is, of course I mean yeah I've got an idea that steve quite likes venus in furs.
Speaker 4:I do. You're about to guess without knowing.
Speaker 2:That's what I'd definitely guess off the cuff.
Speaker 3:Definitely guess. I knew that he had a strong view about it, but didn't know what that strong view was, and I had to guess, I would definitely guess that.
Speaker 4:And you'd be right. I absolutely love heroin, and heroin is the song to be clear.
Speaker 2:Snip that up. That's it.
Speaker 3:Oh I love a bit of heroin. Well, as you said, it's Moorish On a Sunday morning.
Speaker 4:On a Sunday morning with my pancakes. Sprinkle it on, but it's just a remarkable piece of music. But as much as anything else, it's still a great song.
Speaker 3:I mean the viola is incredible.
Speaker 1:are you talking about incredible heroin?
Speaker 4:it's, it's, it's, it's a remarkable piece of music and I I I would listen to it by choice, and did listen to it by choice a lot when we were younger I've listened to it for years, but I've really enjoyed listening to it again you know, even even at its most grotesquely noisy and insane in the middle, there it's not, you know, it's not like european somewhere. I just think this is just noise now. There's not one single point in this song where I think this is just noise now. It's always. This is incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what an experience yeah, yeah, it's extraordinary song. Yeah, yeah, it's great and and it did, I love it. It's it's trying to achieve something through the actual music rather than just the lyrics. To to change the form, to use the form or or use the form in a very irregular way to represent the experience of, of or. The subject matter is so imaginative.
Speaker 4:It's brilliant, but I think that's what I was saying earlier about, about this whole thing about stretching yourself beyond your ability level. I mean, it's it's like this is where that works. It's like we're trying to push, oh they're definitely do something. We can't do it. We're all, we're all over the place, we're out of time, we're out of tune, we've, we've, we're beyond our musical capabilities. But unlike, unlike in something like European Summer, it just sends it to noise for no reason.
Speaker 1:Everything about that works here it's just brilliant but it ain't Venus in first. I don't love. I don't love it the song Heroin as much as you two. I think it gets a little bit too messy for me. It gets on the wrong side of that line it is very messy, especially in the middle.
Speaker 2:It gets a little bit too messy for me. It gets on the wrong side of that line.
Speaker 1:It is very messy, especially in the middle. It is very messy, yeah, and so the song Heroin for me. It doesn't run Venus in Furs as close as All Tomorrow's Parties did for me, I prefer.
Speaker 4:All Tomorrow's.
Speaker 1:Parties to Heroin. But yeah, it's not in doubt that Venus in Furs is the best song here and I agree, I think it's a 3-0.
Speaker 2:That's going through to the final. Okay, wow, we have a final. I mean wow, we do.
Speaker 1:We do have a final, and it is Sunday morning against Venus in Furs. Wow, that's a very fitting final.
Speaker 2:I mean, once you've gone through this, there are so many, just stand out, drop dead. Brilliant tracks on this album aren't there, you know, recorded, recorded in three days by a band no one wanted to sign, who a year before couldn't even get their drummer to turn up to their gigs, let alone anyone else. You know this isn't the final.
Speaker 1:I expected actually I didn't expect sunday morning to be in the final, because it does stand out as a bit of an oddity and I expected it to be one of the other sort of proto punk, dylan-esque folk rock songs like I'm waiting for the man or there she goes again.
Speaker 1:I expected one of those to be maybe in the final um yeah but I'm I'm not surprised actually that venus infers made it through in the bottom half of the draw against all of those avant-garde wig-out, heavy messy songs like Heroine, black Angel, death, european Sun, all Tomorrow's Parties, I think, as good as all that they are.
Speaker 4:I think we have agreed that venus infers is um is pretty awesome but everything else has something that you could be put off by, which is, you know, the viola becomes crazy noisy in the middle of heroin, or european sun descends into total wig out. Or, uh, black angel's death song is a bit meaningless in the lyrics and and sort of, is just sort of ends and doesn't go anywhere, or nico's vocal is going to get, yeah, under your grill because it's not for everybody, or do you know? I mean, whatever this is, there's something, okay, something for, but but venus infers is, it's just perfect.
Speaker 1:It's perfect. But if okay, let us try. So Venus in furs it just comes straight in, there's no intro and it's almost a drone backing throughout. It doesn't have a sort of high or a low, it just kind of drones on throughout a sort of high or low. It just kind of drones on throughout. Is that? Is that something that that could put you off?
Speaker 4:not necessarily does but, if you don't like drone in general and you're the sort of person who who doesn't? I mean, I love drones, absolutely love them again, not for flying into prisons, um you know, if.
Speaker 4:If that's not your thing, then yeah, fine that that could be off-putting. But again, the vocal could be off-putting, but it's perfect because it sounds sleazy. You know, he's almost speak talking. Um, sorry, not speak talking, they're the same thing speak singing. Uh, you know, in in in places, um, you know, but it's perfect, he sounds because it works against the drone. It really works that vocal really works well.
Speaker 2:I mean, the whole song is is based on a book, isn't it? I mean that this band I mean this band have got serious kink in them. They're named after the velvet underground is named after a book which is about sexual taboos going on in the early 60s new york city this song is finished.
Speaker 2:In first it's written by a man called Leopold von Sascha Massach, so that's probably where we get the word masochist from. So, and it's about a man who becomes a slave to his lover. Taste the whip in love, not given lightly, I mean crikey the lyrics are great crikey.
Speaker 3:The lyrics are great, they're so good, crikey Mrs.
Speaker 4:You know, such a British response to an.
Speaker 2:Austrian peccadillo oh, crikey, Crikey.
Speaker 4:Leo.
Speaker 2:Calm down a bit mate.
Speaker 1:As you're making your pancakes in the morning one or two sugars in your tea.
Speaker 2:Oh, got a bit of to colour here. We couldn't deal with that. No way, no way. Is this written by a British band?
Speaker 3:but what else do you like in the?
Speaker 2:lyrics Steve, what else do you what?
Speaker 4:just, I mean I love you know. Strike dear mistress and cure his heart.
Speaker 5:I mean, it just says so much.
Speaker 4:You know that that that that's real show, don't tell. Do you know what I mean? It's like you can see his pain and his pleasure and his need for it and everything. It's just, it's all there. And you know, whiplash girl child is, is, is. So it's like there's a wrongness to that because because it's hinting at this lolita style you know underagedness, that you know it's like are we are we going there? Are we not going there? You know there's this, there's so much hinted at and and it's just never, it's it's. You can't better it, it's just perfect it's a.
Speaker 2:It is an extraordinary piece. They're both extraordinary pieces of music. They're both very different and they're both on the same album, four tracks apart. It's crazy.
Speaker 4:It does beg the question do they lose out when kale goes though? Because you know again, if you take off the, the viola I keep saying viola. I'm not sure whether I should be saying viola. I think viola might be a name. Anyway, take off that instrument and that those songs are significantly less interesting, uh, that both of them would be significantly less interesting without john kale's contribution. Um, and that raises questions about you know, because obviously why?
Speaker 1:Because they Isn't that an example that the band fit together really well? And these are two songs where the band are all delivering and you can't take any one part away.
Speaker 4:Yes, absolutely yeah. I think they're significantly less. You know, if you took John Cale off, it just wouldn't be as good, it wouldn't be anywhere near as good, but wouldn't that be the same for any of the?
Speaker 2:four of them.
Speaker 1:Any of the four of them. I mean Nico is the one who you could take out of this album and it would still be as good.
Speaker 4:No, no, no, I'm not saying out of the Velvet Underground, I'm saying out of these two specific songs.
Speaker 1:No, that's what I mean. I mean she is. You could take her away from Sunday morning, because Sunday morning, I think, is the only one I'm not sure she's actually on Venus in Furs. You could take her backing vocals away from Sunday morning and you could replace them with the rest of the band, and that would probably still be just as good but you couldn't take. Lou Reed away. You couldn't take John Caird away. You couldn't take Moe or or Sterling away. You could take Sterling Morris. I think.
Speaker 4:No, I don't think. I don't think that's true. The viola is so specific, it's such a specific and unique sound that doesn't turn up on other uh albums, you know? I mean, I mean, how many times have we talked about the incredibly foregrounded viola part in the 51 episodes we've now done, you know, in rock and it? We haven't once. It's never come up. Because it doesn't come up. I think what?
Speaker 5:you're saying. I don't disagree with what you're saying no in the 50 previous episodes of McCartney and.
Speaker 4:Cole we've never discussed it and I think in Heroin and in Venus, in Furs. Those are the two songs we're talking about right? No, no, sorry, sunday Morning and Venus in Furs, oh, sorry, I forgot we're talking about, right, no, no, sorry, sunday Morning and Venus in Furs. Oh, sorry, I forgot we were talking about Sunday Morning. Yeah, but anyway in Heroin and Venus in Furs, I don't think those songs are anywhere near as interesting without the viola.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, yeah, and I think they'd still be brilliant.
Speaker 4:They'd still be brilliant, but they wouldn't be as interesting.
Speaker 1:I agree. Venus in firsts is such an integral part, isn't it that sound? And it's like a loop as well.
Speaker 4:It's pre-looping because he's not going. Oh, I'm going to play a solo now. Chaps Cale is very good at going. I'm sticking to this one thing and I'm going to do it the whole way through, because looping hasn't been invented yet.
Speaker 1:Is that? Ok yeah, invented yet it's okay. Yeah, and the way you would, the way you would make, prove that case is it's one. It's, it's an element of the song that if you did a cover of the song and you didn't have it in there, you'd be listening to that cover going where's the viola?
Speaker 1:yeah like if you did a cover of Sweet Child of Mine and you didn't have the riff, yeah, it would be like, well, hang on, this isn't Sweet Child of Mine. I mean it is because it's a cover, but it's missing the integral element let's play Cheryl Crow's cover of Sweet Child of Mine right now.
Speaker 4:Let's not, and see if that applies.
Speaker 5:Now and then when I see his face, it takes me away to that special place, and if I stare too long I'll probably break down and cry.
Speaker 1:Well, ok, and what was the John Lewis advert which? They played it on the piano and that didn't work Because it just it wasn't. It was Sweet. They played it on the piano and that didn't work because it just it wasn't. It was Sweet, child of Mine on the piano, but it just the riff didn't. It wasn't the riff, you know.
Speaker 4:It's like you're missing the central element of that song and it's still a good enough song that it works, but it's not the same thing at all yeah right. What's going through then, people? It's the final's the final.
Speaker 1:There's nothing to go through, it's just one to the left stand one is going to win sunday morning or venus infers is going to win, and I know what I'm voting for what are you voting for, dave?
Speaker 2:if you know it, share it I'm voting for venus infers Whoa. Well, I am voting.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't make my pancakes to it, but I prefer it as a song. I think it's the better song. It's a brilliant moment in rock music.
Speaker 2:I'm going to give a vote to Sunday Morning, so I'm going to leave because it's just an amazing, beautiful pop moment. It's in an amazing, beautiful pop moment. It's in an album full of abstract moments and juxtaposition and making you surprised. Changing your expectations of what you're going to hear Sunday Morning is my vote, because it's so unexpected for a Velvet Underground song so. Steve, you've got the deciding vote.
Speaker 1:Are you setting up a? Would you really vote for Sunday morning over Venus Affairs? No, of course you wouldn't. Or are you setting up? Of course I wouldn't, I'm set, I mean breaking the fourth wall.
Speaker 2:I'm obviously setting up Steve. Steve loves his song. I'm setting him up for the victory, aren't I, dave? Okay?
Speaker 3:You great big ninny, you ruined it, dave. I knew that if you bothered to think about it. Very poor, very poor hosting.
Speaker 4:So it's terrible. So brett, brett, brett. What uh? What instrument is being played? Pop quiz what instrument is being played? Or you can have this dave on the uh on the lovely track. Sunday morning what?
Speaker 2:is that? Is it so let's pronounce celesta, celesta the Celesta. It's kind of like a keyboard, is it? And?
Speaker 4:it's a special twinkly keyboard that creates that lovely twinkly sound.
Speaker 5:And what?
Speaker 4:is the other most famous piece of music in popular culture, which has the Celesta upon it. And can we hear it now, before we get there? Is it Twinkle, twinkle Little Star? Well, there's so many versions of that you couldn't yeah, okay it is. Let's have a little bit of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy by Tchaikovsky, oh lovely.
Speaker 2:No, no classical music. This is, this is rock and roll only don't hear it much, do you?
Speaker 4:you don't, you don't hear much less of these days no we're the worst.
Speaker 2:For it, I would say more celeste so there you go.
Speaker 4:So a bit of celeste, a bit of viola oh beautiful, get it back in popular culture.
Speaker 2:So I mean so quite clearly I I'm voting for.
Speaker 4:Venus in furs Sorry.
Speaker 3:We'll do that again.
Speaker 2:You're still fucking impossible to work with. I was going to say so, celeste. The chat aside, let's say let's build it up. Steve, what are you voting for? And why?
Speaker 4:What am I voting for and why? I love Sunday morning, but I'm voting for Venus in furs because it is genuinely one of my all-time favourite songs. I'd forgotten how much I loved it.
Speaker 5:It's going to Do. You know what I'm going to do. I'm going to put it in a playlist and make pancakes.
Speaker 2:I will you have to make the anti what's the anti version of pancakes for a Sunday morning? You have to make that.
Speaker 4:If you're listening to venus and furs, you have to make, oh god what, what, what food would you make if I suppose you'd make some, uh, velvety cupcakes, uh, that were red?
Speaker 2:everything you make would have to be bright red yeah, yeah and you'd have to make you'd have to make them in the dark yeah, and like the richest darkest chocolate, it'd have to be really indulgent darkest chocolate and yes, eat that instead.
Speaker 4:You're absolutely right. And then, but you wouldn't actually really eat it with a ganache, that's nice. You wouldn't actually eat it. You'd kind of like you'd move it towards your face delicately and then you'd just smother it. Smother it on your face, smother it on your face. Cover your face with it, cover your face. Don't eat it yourself they lick it in my case off my lovely beard I was just okay so just a minute mentions of food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but just I've got a choice.
Speaker 2:Now when I come back, who's whose house gonna come around to for breakfast on a sunday morning? Dave, spark up the the frying pan. I want some pancakes.
Speaker 4:I do not fancy I do not fancy steve's idea of Sunday morning breakfast, which you're going to lick out of my beard.
Speaker 4:Yes, I'm voting for it, because I think I've made the case already. But I mean, it's just when you put, sometimes, when you put imperfect elements together, you create something completely perfect. And that's what happens here. Nothing about what they put together here. The viola playing isn't perfect. It's out of tune in places. Reed's vocal is measurably quite bad. Do you know what I mean? It's like there's all. There's all kinds of things. You know her Mo has never been a great drummer. There's so many things that are imperfect, but when you put them together in this song it's as perfect as a record gets and it's completely unforgettable shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather with flash.
Speaker 5:Girl child in the dark comes in bells. Your servant, don't forsake him. Strive dear mischief and cure his heart down. He sins of streetlight fancies. Chase the costumes she shall wear, hermine furs adorned in periods. Severin Severance awaits you there, you, you.