Reed ended up singing the song on the band's 1967 debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico, but Witts says it was the other members of the band that made the song so different from its original form. It's like a parody of a medieval folk song or something." It has this beautiful folksy sound to it. Lou Reed wrote it, but gave it to John Cale to sing on the Ludlow Tapes. "It wasn't meant to be as serious as it ended up sounding, I think. "'Venus In Furs' was originally a kind of send up of a particular literary form, that was associated with masochism and so on," Witts says. It was written, and named, before the band adopted the name The Velvet Underground from a book by Michael Leigh. The song was inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's book of the same name. ![]() The first recorded version of the song comes from a session in the band's Ludlow Street Loft in July 1965, which features Cale singing lead vocals. 'Venus In Furs' was one of the first Velvet Underground songs Lou Reed wrote. There's nothing comparable to that." Venus In Furs Then you add in Andy Warhol on top of that, as their so-called 'manager' and producer, and it is absolutely exciting but completely unique. "Now, you add in Nico, and that really is a strange mix. "That personal background also explains the uniqueness of The Velvet Underground. You could say that Lou Reed wanted to be famous and John Cale wanted to be infamous. "You have these two worlds clashing, and these two personalities who also clashed personally. He went to New York and worked with a leading avant-garde composer and great influence on the Velvet Underground, La Monte Young. "The idea of a viola playing a part in rock music was so bizarre. "You have, on the other side, John Cale, who came from South Wales and was a classically trained viola player. He was into doo wop and he wanted to be a songwriter,” Witts says. "On the one side, you have Lou Reed who was brought up in Queens. Their musical ideals were conflicting and the circumstances from which the two major creative players, Reed and Cale, had come were very different. And there was a lot of work going on there." They were misfits, very creative misfits, and they had somewhere to work. "Then Andy came along and we felt protected, just like all the other people that were at the Factory, they felt protected. "The band had a sense of 'it's us against the world'. So, it was fortuitous that Andy Warhol would champion the band from an early stage. They weren't going to compromise their artistic vision. Serves them right."ĭespite being at odds with musical trends, the band were determined. Woodstock, we were happy they ended up in the mud. "Apart from all the flower children and everything else, it was just silly. "We hated the summer of love with a vengeance," Cale said. The hippie counterculture of the 1960s did not wash with the members of The Velvet Underground. VU don't need it, they've got Andy Warhol'." "MGM Records put it out and then, when it came to promotion dollars, they said, 'Nah we'll give it to Zappa. "We were hated, pretty much," John Cale told the ABC's Richard Fidler in 2007. It also explains why those albums didn't sell very well at the time. "The contradictions of that are what make The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967) and White Light/White Heat (1968) so unique. ![]() "One is the avant-garde scene in New York, which was really heating up in the 1960s, the other was the pop scene. "They sit in between two different currents," Witts says. Richard Witts is a British musicologist, musician and writer, whose third book, The Velvet Underground, is a study of the music and the story behind the iconic band. There was always something unique about The Velvet Underground. Below is merely a rudimentary look at the band's genesis and key moments, form the perspective of experts and the band's key players. ![]() Their history is well-documented, each of their songs analysed within an inch of their being. Listen to The Velvet Underground J Files here So-called 'iconic' bands are now strewn throughout popular music, but the Velvets' incisive proto-punk music and striking visual imagery make them one of rock'n'roll's most immediately recognisable and beloved outfits. There are few bands as influential as New York punk progenitors The Velvet Underground.ĭrawing inspiration from pop music, drugs, New York city's art scene and general disaffection, their music became a beacon for outsiders everywhere and remains so to this day.
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