Saturday, September 23, 2006

The Velvet Underground and the Neocons

I was gamely going to attempt a serious political blog this morning inspired by this analysis of David Cameron's seemingly anti-neocon foreign policy speech on the Henry Jackson Society site. Sadly, the prose is so leaden that I only got half way through and, for the second time today, lost the will to live. Instead, I shall note the fact that, sitting in a cafe in Holt in Norfolk this morning, where Bob Dylan was playing, I read a review of a new book about The Velvet Underground. It struck me that, had I fallen asleep forty years ago and woken up now, I would probably note at once how gratifyingly little had changed. Anyway, it reminded me that John Cale told me many years ago that he would never forgive Lou Reed for changing a line in Heroin. Cale had wanted the first Velvets album to be utterly hard, without a chink of sentimentality or easy humanity. But Reed had compromised that great song by letting in a sliver of ordinary feeling. The changed line was either 'I don't know just where I'm going' or 'And I guess that I just don't know', both of which, to me, seem to compromise slightly the song's ferocious nihilism. Cale, of course, got exactly what he wanted on the next album with Sister Ray, which, to cleanse my mind of the prose of the Henry Jackson Society, I shall now play.

6 comments:

  1. Not too familiar with the Sister Ray album but I wonder what John Cale felt about the gentleness of tracks like Sunday Morning. Dunno though if in time, the lack of emotion in a track like The Gift appears a bit dated and immature. I'd probably side with Lou Reed on the Heroin debate. Would it be a case of posturing to insist on a lack of emotion in the song- art in the service of the nihilistic idea rather than how Reed actually felt? That said, it's certainly time I started giving the VU a listen again.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You should, Andrew. Sister Ray isn't an album, it's a track on their second album, White Light, White Heat.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That makes sense of my confusion. White Light, White Heat an album wiothout the softer side if I remember right. With the vague justification of coupling music and politics, I think this is a pretty interesting video from Depeche Mode. Bit more hard-hitting than you're gonna get from U2 and Coldplay anyway. And even gets the All Seeing Eye and Freemasonry in there!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaB1psXTjS4

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good vid, Andrew, but I do find the politics a little conventional. I'd like to see them do the same about Osama bin Laden.

    ReplyDelete
  5. True, Bryan. I don't think our gaze should simply be fixed on the US.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I should warn you to be careful what you say about Bin Laden though. Here is the official FBI website profile of Bin Laden; you'll notice he's not wanted in connection with 911. Funny the things that the press don't tend to mention, isn't it?
    http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm

    ReplyDelete