(Interlude: Enter the Velvet Underground)

This blog’s been going for a little over a year and a half now and after 48 posts, we have finally arrived at the advent of the Velvet Underground. That moves us into a new phase and there will be a bit of a hiatus while I do some research. Recently I walked into...

Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams

It was quite jarring to first hear “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams.” Cale takes over on vocals for this one and provides the percussive tapping while Reed plays acoustic guitar. After hearing the preceding folk and blues-styled performances, suddenly it doesn’t sound...

Stockpile

The lyrics for this are nowhere to be found online, and some are incomprehensible, but here’s my best guess: They went and took my Uncle JoeWe ain’t see (?) no moreThe man said everything is fineDon’t you worry bout the old coal mineGuess it looks like I’m gonna have...

Pale Blue Eyes (1)

I debated whether to write about this here, as I am planning to deal with the other future Velvet Underground songs on Lou Reed: Words & Music, May 1965 (“I’m Waiting for the Man” and “Heroin”) in the context of the first VU album. But “Pale Blue Eyes” is an...

Buzz Buzz Buzz

It’s hard to believe that this goofy slice of The Blooz was written by the same guy, and at around the same time, as “Heroin,” “Waiting for the Man,” and “Venus in Furs.” I mean, what would Lester Bangs have said? Lester, for those unfamiliar, was a rock ctitic who...

Walk Alone

Some of the songs on Words & Music, May 1965 display a whimsy that we don’t associate much with the Reed/Cale Velvet Underground. I guess there had to be a sense of humor underlying something like “Sister Ray” or “The Gift,” but it is a stone-faced, sadistic sort...

Buttercup Song (Verse 4)

It seems those who tell you what to doHave already done it, before they doBut it don’t even matter — uh, if’n it’s trueBecause you know — damn well, you knowYou’re gonna do the same thing, too Here we get the moral of the story: Don’t trust anybody, not even yourself....

Buttercup Song (Verse 3)

Well, then it happenedWell, I am sad to relateWhile he’s eating SpaghettiOs, this girl’s – uh, Chinese plateHe drooled and he slobbered over the designAs down in his mouth dribbled three-month-old port wineNineteen dollars a quart, gift from his mother –...

Buttercup Song (Bridge)

Oh, you should have seen it!Oh, my God, what a sight!A fully grown man writing poems at nightTo the silly old flower blooming in the night airAs alliteration blossomed, off in his chairTo which I came attached one dusky eveningWhen I sat in our park, some stuffing in...

Buttercup Song (Verse 2)

But he is a liar, of course he got hung upOn an androgynous small buttercupOf staminate and pistillate flowers, did heWhich happens, by the way, when you get involved emotionally, so – There are a few words worth exploring here, the first of which is...