Lightyears Ahead! I'm Waiting For The Man - Hip Hop Fan Reacts To The Velvet Underground
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- Опубликовано: 12 мар 2023
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Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground quote: "“One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.”
No need to look for anything deeper here. The story is straight forward, hard-hitting, open-your-eyes description of a white guy who is hurting for a fix and what he goes through to meet his "man" and do the deal, including the "pardon me sir" to avoid getting robbed and his head kicked in. -- When he gets home, he's high and his girl is shouting at him, again,. Nothing new. Just a repetition of yesterday, and a foretaste of tomorrow. -- The repetitive hard beat just gets stronger and stronger. So apt.
I heard this album when it was released in the 60s. I was a naive midwestern kid and this really opened my eyes to a world I never imagined. Lou Reed went on to create many other great albums. My personal favorite is "New York", an album with fascinating stories.
OK, I gotta say a thing or two. First: it's "Dior shoes", not 'PR'. Next: Syed, it's not "spit"...It's "split', which was the hip word back in the day for "leave". Mid-70's kids changed it to "book", and god knows what it is now. I really like your reactions. That said, I'd ask one thing. Lately, it seems like you're emphasizing the interpretation of lyrics way more than anything else, which to me lacks balance. It also means you're pausing a lot...like every10 or 15 seconds. Hard for me, at least, to enjoy that; and for you to get any sense of the flow. You'd have known who the dealer was, etc, if you'd given it time. Lou didn't exactly hide it. When you get to "Heroin"...please just hear it through! It's a song that builds. It's crushing. And you won't feel it build if you're breaking it up. It'd be like pausing Saving Private Ryan every thirty seconds or so. All the feel is lost. Thanks for listening.
PR shoes meant Puerto Rican shoes! This was obviously a reference to Spanish Harlem.
It's a masterpiece.
Pure gold. Really glad you got to more Velvet Underground. Maybe a bit of Lou saying to Dylan, "hey Bob, I can tell a story too." Although, with Lou you don't have to dig too deep to figure out what he's really talking about. Of course whenever you do a Velvet Underground song, it will always give me the opportunity to say check out tracks from his solo "Transformer" album produced by David Bowie. Although Chronologically the Velvet Underground is the place to start.
Always a safe bet that a VU song is about drugs. They only really had two themes despite their explosive creativity, and that's the more prolific of the two.
The comment about the blues raises an interesting point. Technically the song is a 12-bar blues, in terms of the chord sequence and the way the verses are structured, but it doesn't sound like the blues. The sound is a mix of Lou Reed's rock 'n' roll influences and John Cale's avant-garde background (it's Cale making those dissonant noises on the piano). What a unique style this band had.
A side-note re your proto-punk comment: John Cale produced the first Stooges album in 1969.
Excellent decision to go through the whole album, Syed.
So glad you're doing this Velvet Underground album; it is so iconic. I love this song and the music really expresses the feeling that goes with the story. It just really does. It's rough and strident but it's also really warm and casual and it is amped up with excitement and it is insistent and relentless. It just feels good to me.
I was lucky enough to see Lou Reed live in Denver (Colorado) in 1989 or 1990 (can't remember the exact year) when he was touring the "New York" album. It was an incredible concert. Lou was gracious and gregarious. He talked and told short stories and joked between songs. He did the entire New York album in order along with other songs from his catalogue. I don't remember him doing any V.U. songs other that possibly "Rock & Roll". Years later I found myself at a Cheap Trick concert at Red Rocks. Tom Peterson, (Cheap Trick's bassist) sang and played an excellent version of "Waiting for the Man". His vocals were spot on. Lou will live on forever...
Syed, you'll freak when you hear "Venus In Furs".
"Darling don't you bawl and shout" I think refers to him not wanting his girlfriend to ruin his high. Junkies usually like to mellow out and don't want lots of commotion around them. Heroin, unlike speed or coke, is not a social drug and most people prefer to take it in the calm and quiet of their home.
PR shoes were "Puerto Rican" shoes. They were a type of smooth soled, leather topped dress shoe that came to a tapered point past the toes. They were also called "PRFC"s or "Puerto Rican Fence Climbers."
Yes, your reading of Malcolm X, has informed you of the situation. Lou is telling experience that in 1967, was not covered in music, but was obviously happening.
John Cale huge influence on VU's sound. Cale's a Welshman, who won a scholarship to study classical music in the US. He became fascinated with Lou's lyrics. The repetitive tone and atonal sounds were his speciality. He studied with avant garde composers John Cage and Lamont Young. He once took part in a classical performance that went on for 24 hours straight just hitting one note on the piano. This song and album is revolutionary for 1966 and the Velvets rejected psychedelia and the hippy movement and the Love bs. Also, drummer Maureen Tucker is a unique stylist on the drums. She bares the sound down to a primal level.
It’s not just the music which is proto-punk. It’s the whole attitude Lou Reed was famous for, which went against everything else in style in 1967, which was the Summer Of Love. When people came up to him in public he might be polite, ignore them, or jam a finger up their nose. Journalists might schedule an interview and Reed might not say a word, not show up, threaten them, or give a charming interview. “What do you spend your money on, Lou?” “Oh, drugs, mostly.” This song is about buying heroin in Harlem. Radio didn’t want to play it in 1967, as you can imagine. This album also has S&M parties, drag queens, “Heroin”, where an addict describes his final overdose, and Nico, a German supermodel, singing love songs. Definitely not The Beatles.
Excellent choice. I hear a lot of Dylan in this track. This band with the Pop Art banana cover by Warhol were very much a New York art band you can feel the beat writers and modern jazz etc in there. This song is a precursor to the Ramones, talking heads and Joy division, I could totally hear Joy division doing this song. The Velvets were performing nightly on double bill with Zappa and the Mothers at some theater in Greenwich Village. This song also reminds me of “CIA Man” by the Fugs another New York band. The Velvets were very much of this place and time, a short lived band. This Great reaction and you picked up on this song right away. For more proto punk try TV Eye by Iggy and the stooges.