Wanderlusting (wanderlusting) wrote, @ 2008-05-24 03:35:00

VELVET RAPTURE



Music.

What really explains our extraordinary affinity towards it? Why does it have the power it does to affect us psychologically and alter our perceptions of time and the moment we’re in? Brain researchers are having a field day discovering the intricacies of our natural passion for notes and harmony and rhythm and a beat.

Just think how important music has been in your life in shaping, comforting and defining who you are. Your CD and iPod collections are invaluable to you. Losing them would be like losing a part of yourself.

Isn’t great to find someone who shares the same musical tastes as you? Someone else who is a “fan” in the sense that the same music that speaks to you so completely also touches them as well? Surely there must be a connection between you two as well.

One of my favorite lessons in the Philosophy Class is when we play music from around the world to examine what images pop up in our mind and what we ASSOCIATE with when we hear a certain instrument or musical structure. It’s amazing what pictures the brain naturally conjures up upon hearing a certain mathematical structure of notes and how cultures are built around such aural iconography.

All this blah blah blah introduction just to talk about one band. It’s a lazy Saturday here before I take off again to Vietnam to meet an old college friend who is travelling all the way over here to visit and I will run her around the Mekong Delta and back into Cambodia. I couldn’t think of a topic to write on when I thought, fuck it, i’ll write about the music I’m listening to right now: The Velvet Underground.

Some of you may have heard of them already. Lou Reed, a Brooklyn poet who received shock treatments as a youth, formed a band in New York City in the mid-1960’s. This band would sell almost no records in their four year history, but long after their demise, many call them one of the most influential American bands in rock and roll history.

Lou Reed, classical violinist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison (who later would be a professor of mathematics at University of Texas) and Maureen Tucker (yes, a woman drummer way back then) created music so different and distinct from the bubbly, “groovy”, light music of that era. Their vision was dark, melancholy and filled with weighty literary images coupled with music at its most urgent and stirring.

Look at the opening lines to their 1967 masterpiece “Heroin”:

I don’t know just where I’m going
But I’m gonna try for the kingdom if I can
‘Cause it make me feel like I’m a man
When I put a spike into my vein
Then I tell you things aren’t quite the same
When I’m rushing on my run
And I feel just like Jesus’ son
And I guess that I just don’t know
And I guess that I just don’t know.


We’re not in Beach Boys’ America anymore. Throughout the entire song, Lou Reed adopts the persona of a suicidal heroin junkie seeking redemption. The music itself imitates the heroin experience as it rushes to its painful, feedback-filled climax before crashing suddenly back into its heartbreakingly failure set to the pretty guitar strums of "And I guess that I just don't know"...You’re led on a 7 1/2 minute epic journey played with only TWO CHORDS throughout the entire song. Listen...

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=G8VIXnTL6O0 ("Heroin" in a five minute acoustic take)
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=G8VIXnTL6O0 (The entire shattering original song)

They only put out four official records: The Velvet Underground and Nico (with the famous Andy Warhol Banana cover), White Light/White Heat, The Velvet Underground and Loaded, but each recording is startling in its range of emotion and drama. Their songs have been covered by thousands of bands, famous and not. Particular favorites of mine include, “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” “Stephanie Says,” “What Goes On,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” “Rock ‘n Roll”, "Sister Ray", “Lisa Says” and “I Found a Reason”. Perhaps their most famous besides “Heroin” is “Sweet Jane” which concludes with the Velvet's most heart-felt, struggle-to-reach-the light lines:

Some people, they like to go out dancing
And other peoples, they have to work, just watch me now...
And there's even some evil mothers
Well they're gonna tell you that everything is just dirt
Y'know that, women never really faint
And that villains always blink their eyes
And that children are the only ones who blush
And that life is just to die
But anyone who ever had a heart
They wouldn't turn around and break it
And anyone who ever played a part
Wouldn't turn around and hate it

Sweet jane... Sweet sweet jane

"Sweet Jane" live... http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=G8VIXnTL6O0



Now I know we can all go on and on about the music that has meant the most to us. Over the course of time, many of the musical love affairs dissipate, drift away, we find someone new, we move on...but this old flame is one I come back to time and time again. I’m yacking away about The Velvet Underground because they spoke to me as a teenager and here, all these years later, in wacked-out, dusty Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I am STILL finding relevance in their words and sound.

If I could make the world as pure
And strange as what I see
I’d put you all in the mirror
I put in front of me
That I put in front of me

Linger on, your pale blue eyes.


Thanks Lou. Roll Over Beethoven, tell Tschaikovsky the news.



P.S.

"Walk on the Wild Side" http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=V4ditCW2TiA&feature=related
(this is kinda fun/silly) Lou Reed playing with Luciano Pavarotti singing "Perfect Day" http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=kXgbN81zNG8&feature=related (it ain't TRAINSPOTTING!)
A full concert of Lou Reed in April on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90226727

	Sad Music, Sad Life (Anonymous) 2008-05-27 22:01 (link)
	The Velvet Underground are good but they're depressing. Too much will ruin your health. Now take two Go-Go's and go to bed. (Reply to this) (Thread)

Dancing like a maniac over here wanderlusting 2008-05-29 01:40 (link)

Don't get me wrong...I do groove to the Go-Go's (and with Vacation coming up and all) but you're wrong about the Velvets and depression. So many of their songs are very life-affirming, but completely understand that it's a complex world out there. But truly, truly, truly believe me: They got the beat! Jenny said, when she was just about five years old 'Hey, you know, there's nothin' happening at all, not at all Every time I put on the radio You know, there's nothin' goin' down at all, not at all But, one fine morning, she hears a New York station She couldn't believe what she heard at all, hey, not at all She started dancing to that fine, fine music You know, her life was saved by rock'n'roll Yes, rock'n'roll Despite all the computations You know, you could just dance to the rock'n'roll station All right All right, all right, and it was all right Oh, listen to me now, it was all right Come on now, believe me, it was all right it was all right Hey, it's all right now,....... "Rock 'n Roll" is six minutes of giddy bliss. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)