Books The Velvet Underground Taught Us About

By Jason Diamond

I made this weird realization that 2009 was the first year I can remember that I listened to more solo albums of Velvet Underground members than actual Velvet Underground albums. John Cale’s Paris 1919 may have been the best example of this, as the title track has always been one of my favorite songs ever, it’s the opening track, “Child’s Christmas in Wales”, sharing a name with a Dylan Thomas poem that made me wonder “how much influence did books play in the work of the members of The Velvet Underground?”

Lets start with the name of the band. Lou Reed, John Cale and Co. lifted it from a book written by Michael Leigh in 1963. I see a lot of people walking around with shirts that say “The Velvet Underground” and wonder if they know the design (above) has little to do with the band, but more to do with group-sex, S&M, etc.

Then we have the Lou Reed connection to Delmore Schwartz. Reed was a student of Schwartz’s at Syracuse, and Schwartz, who wasn’t much of a fan of rock n’ roll had said to Reed, “”You can write—and if you ever sell out and there’s a Heaven from which you can be haunted, I’ll haunt you.” Reed heeded those words, and is still the same self-absorbed, moody bastard he was back then. Also of noting, “European Son” on The Velvet Underground and Nico was dedicated to Schwartz.

It’s pretty obvious that Reed was interested in S&M. There were the live shows during the Andy Warhol days included a live whip cracker, and of course there is the song “Venus in Furs”, named after the book of the same name written by the man the term “masochism” was derived from, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.

Literary ambitions are always noticeable in Velvet Underground songs, but if I need to pick the most shining example of this, I’d go for “The Gift” off what I consider one of the three greatest albums ever put out, White Light/White Heat. Just over eight minutes of Cale telling a Reed-written tale about young Waldo Jeffers mailing himself in a box to his love Marsha, who is at school in Wisconsin. Sounds like a brilliant idea, until Marsha gets out the sheet metal cutters to see what the box contains. Hilarity and death ensue.

Cale left the band after White Light/White Heat, leaving Reed as more or less the sole leader of the group. Some might say while the quality of the bands music in terms of willingness to experiment went down, the last two studio albums in the bands catalog might be seen as an exercise in Reed’s writing talent. On the 1969 self-titled album, and the follow up, 1970′s Loaded, Reed penned songs to characters like Candy (real life Candy Darling) and Sweet Jane, as well as the extremely touching song”Pale Blue Eyes” and the sweet “After Hours”.

Later in his post-Velvet life, Reed would pay tribute to another doomed writer, Edgar Allan Poe, on 2003′s The Raven. While the album had guest spots by his old buddy David Bowie, his wife Laurie Anderson, Antony Hegarty (Antony and the Johnsons), and Steve Buscemi. The album didn’t have the critical reception I’m sure Reed wanted and expected.