the velvet underground nico album came out in 1967 amid the hippie revolution in the summer of love the velvets were disillusioned with these ideas and presented a darker side of things one that was diametrically opposed to the popular counterculture movement of the time they laid the foundation for punk and glam rock and even influenced electronic music movements the velvet underground were able to demystify the sexual freedom and the drug culture of the 1960s through matter of fact observations of new york street life that served as the antithesis to the west coast feel good vibe and in doing so created one of the most influential prophetic albums of all time that expressed an alienation not being represented in popular culture before them the velvet underground were a quintessentially new york band they embodied the streets they knew in every way they wrote songs about real things that they saw and they certainly saw some interesting things during their time with andy warhols eclectic gang of outcasts their peers consisted of artists junkies homosexuals and transvestites like andy warhols pop art their music was anti art made by anti art elitists they were one of the first rock and roll bands who had no chance of reaching a mass audience because they clashed so deeply with much of societys foundations their music was intellectual but they werent intellectual elitists in the traditional sense of the word they took inspiration from trashy paperback novels rather than the widely regarded literary classics the first track sunday morning is the most delicate on the album and the last to be recorded its really the only track that aims to be beautiful and is its a sort of precursory reminder to the audience that the cacophony and noise about to come is intentional it isn t stemming from a lack of musical skill or knowledge this sort of attitude is what the whole punk movement was based upon but the punks adapted an attitude that preexisting musical knowledge wasnt necessary the attitude and the ideas behind the song are what really matters and this is what the velvet underground served on their debut album with the opening number their softest track they prove that they werent relying solely on shock appeal and a confrontational attitude sunday morning represents the calm before the storm and it is unclear whether the song is first or last in chronological order of the album the song contains the most commercial sound on the album but also somber it reads like a peaceful sunday morning after a long hard week in new york city though not overt or as confrontational as the rest of the songs it shows their multiple personalities one when they are relatively sober albeit coming down as he sings sunday morning and im falling down the album takes no moral stance on all of the crazy things theyve seen in the streets and been a part of but they represent real things going on and not a dream world where everything is always fine some of these things are hard to confront as reed sings ive got a feeling i dont want to know this could be about what happened or whats about to happen throughout the album it recognizes that although the album consists of a series of vignettes representative of ny street culture all of the stories arent completely contained within the album it doesnt manage to tie everything up in a neat way there are stories from before the album and after that are parts of the same narrative but the audience won t be let in on them the velvet underground were used to deep alienation beyond the normal level even within the biggest counter cultural movement in american history going on they couldnt find a place within a larger cross section of american culture the only place they seemed to fit in was with andy warhols factory crowd a self described group of misfits instead of going on along with the hippies rebelling against post war conformity and conservatism in the 1950s they pushed the boundaries even further than the hippies out west and intentionally made people feel uncomfortable hippie music became popular and eventually co opted by the mainstream like every other large cultural movement before and after the velvets pushed the boundaries about as far as they could be pushed nothing was off limits subject matter was real and dark portraying the seedier side of new york and america as a whole instead of singing specifically about equality in race relations racial issues are subtly brought up within the narrative of the songs that feel deeply rooted in the new york that reed was living in in im waiting for the man he sings hey white boy what you doing up town the rest of the lines around it are unclear what the narrator of the song actually is doing uptown sparking much debate as to if its as straight forward as it first appears that the narrator is looking to buy smack another popular interpretation is that the man of the song was actually a homosexual lover of the narrator this theory comes from the lines where the narrator is asked hey white boy you chasin our women around and he responds oh pardon me sir its the furthest thing from my mind im just looking for a dear dear friend of mine this dear friend of his may have been more than someone that just sold him narcotics reed wasnt writing these songs as a peace activist or even outwardly promoting equality like the west coast was fond of he provides a succinct but ultimately telling story of race relations in new york city in a nonchalant conversational tone the song is set in harlem a predominately african american community and the tone in which the narrator is addressed suggests that he a white man has no business being there thus is up to no good hes looking for something that needs to be hidden from mainstream white society whether it be drugs or unconventional sexuality here he takes no explicit position like in heroin but establishes the setting with a gritty realism and doesnt try to hide whats really going on in the neighborhoods of america hes not trying to sell anything but he does tell the story of an underrepresented class of people in america whose issues had been largely ignored reed has no qualms about calling it like it is this deep cultural alienation can inevitably lead to drug use and sometimes abuse when a certain sect of society is ignored or marginalized the velvet underground understood this and with reeds and the backing instrumentation these groups of alienated people are addressed while the west coast largely advocated drug use especially lsd by groups such as jefferson airplane and the grateful dead the velvet underground made music about drugs and inspired by drugs but didnt ostensibly advocate their use this is a key difference between the two coasts the velvets understood that drugs were an escape one which some people found necessary to modern life not everyone took them to party or have a good time hardcore drug users need the drugs because the life they perceive is so bad that something drastic is needed to violently shake them from that world reed addresses the issues that lead to drug abuse within heroin and also cedes that when the smack begins to flow he just doesnt care anymore and it makes him feel like a man the whole song is a musical representation of what shooting heroin feels like to the user while there is no endorsement or denouncement the first verse is certainly the most joyful section of the song it opens with a singular guitar with a very calm riff hat slowly builds with added instrumentation layered on top of each other the drums follow the heartbeat of the user starting off steady and once the heroin is injected it becomes much more frantic and erratic around the five minute mark the screeching viola reaches a pinnacle with the heartbeat drums driving forward faster and faster almost drowning out reeds vocals perhaps signifying that the drug doesnt allow the minds thoughts to fully come through and they are distorted through the lens of the drug the velvet underground and the hippies both used and sang about drugs but their approaches were completely different lou reed sings in heroin that it makes him feel like jesus son he acknowledges that the drug obviously makes the user feel powerful while also making a slight jab at christianity and the idea that jesus was actually married to mary magdalene and fathered children with her heroin is an escape for the user and the acknowledge this when they say when the heroin is in my blood and that blood is in my head thank god im as good as dead and thank your god that im not aware and thank god that i just dont care there is another shot at religion with your god and it reveals the desperation that heroin users face and the mindset that leads to drug addiction to get away from the world that we live in and temporarily escape to a place where there are no jim jims or politicians making crazy sounds the ephemeral joys that the drug provides are just that there is no end in sight lou reed once said i take drugs just because in the 20th century in a technological age living in the city there are certain drugs you have to take just to keep yourself normal like a caveman just to bring yourself up or down he didnt advocate using drugs or not he is matter of fact about the way they feel and what causes him it is just something you do to feel normal in his eyes the music emulates the feelings of a drug user and goes up and down with the highs and lows john cale stated that the long vamps on two chords that droned on was an attempt to control the unconscious with the hypnotic lou reed the main songwriter who shared vocal duties on the album with nico was not afraid of adverse reactions to his he actually welcomed them and the inside sleeves of the album displayed some of the negative reviews the press had written about the shows displaying that the band were perversely proud of them one of the major themes in lous songwriting was sexuality more specifically non traditional sexual practices the name for the band was drawn from a book published in 1963 by michael leigh called the velvet underground about paraphilia in the united states they found the name evocative of underground cinema the title seemed fit for the name of the band as they had already written the song venus in furs based off the book by the same title the word sado masochism is derived from leopold von sacher masoch the author of said book the cover of the velvet underground book says here is an incredible book it will shock and amaze you but as a documentary on the sexual corruption of our age it is a must for every thinking adult the band seemed to take this philosophy wholeheartedly into every facet of their music and their live shows the fourth track of the album venus in furs is an adaptation of sacher masoch s 1870 novel into song form severin the protagonist of the book is madly in love with wanda von dunajew the novels central female character he is so infatuated with her that he literally asks to be her slave and asks her to treat him as such in increasingly degrading ways the fourth line in the song strike dear mistress and cure his heart is seemingly directly from the novel in the novel severin asks to be whipped hard by wanda so he can be cured of his severe infatuation to her but the abuse he receives only deepens his love and intensifies his extreme feelings and devotion sach masoch refers to this as suprasensuality the more frequent and violently abused the more devoted he became to his mistress as she makes him refer to her as the parallels between the novel and reeds own life are hard to ignore both the novel and lous childhood used extreme measures to cure a perceived problem through harsh techniques lous deviant behavior described as homosexual tendencies was regarded as a mental illness in the 1960s and he was treated with electro shock therapy which he later wrote about in kill your sons during his solo career in both cases these techniques only brought about more suffering reeds deviance wasnt accepted by society or more importantly by his family and this led to intense alienation which would later drive his work the hippie mindset of peace and love wasnt the reality reed faced in the new york streets there were real consequences for being different and doing something that most people didnt approve of later in the song reed sings of ermine furs which adorn the imperious while displaying his vast vocabulary and familiarity with obscure literature he is able to vividly describe the imagery of the novel and stay true to the main components of the story essentially poetically summarizing the novel the use of imperious reinforces the dominatrix relationship while ermine furs strengthen the imagery of the scene that is being described while the musical ensemble is a whips n chains atmosphere called up by john cales viola drones cut by slashes and maureen tuckers slave master time keeping on kettle drum and tambourine the instrumentation allows the velvets to explore areas that a novel cant and portray the sinister and desperate situations described through the imagery of their ensemble the main root of their drug use and sexual deviance was an intense sense of alienation they were in the fast paced east coast world that didnt care about your feelings it was about getting things done getting together and feeling alright was not on the agenda this alienation led them down a path that no one in popular music had been down before one of their main goals was to antagonize the audience whether it was the audience at home listening to the record or the audience at the show at their live shows andy warhol movies would be playing in the background while the band wailed away on the guitars with feedback which sounded like 12 million guitars going at one time with the amplified intensified screeches that really hurt the eardrums the goal was to create an atmosphere that was uncharted territory and pushed the audience passed their limits warhol said about the pictures that played behind them if the audience can take it for ten minutes i show it for fifteen minutes the effect was to disorient the audience and leave them too stunned to think or say anything or give any kind of opinion they struck chords deep within people that made them think about what it truly means to be alive these songs werent mindless pop tunes to wash over the listener and make them feel safe or momentarily give them pleasure but they brought out the raw emotions that lay deep within and forced the listener to at least consider an alternative at times being so radical that they wouldnt even know how to react this approach was obviously not popular with the masses and at their shows most of the audience would end up leaving early with about ninety percent of the remaining spectators were hostile to the show ralph j gleason a respected critic for the san francisco chronicle described their performance nothing more than a bad condensation of all the bum trips of the trips festival he reportedly pulled the plug when they left the stage with their guitars leaning on the amps to create a squalor of electronic noise they also did this to bill graham at another show in san francisco and set about smashing morrisons drum kit after their set with the amps still blaring he confronted them after the show and they brushed him off they later said he was muttering something about insurance reasons as reed was injured from a flying cymbal to his head and was bleeding profusely after the chaotic destruction this is not to say that all of california was against them but many prominent hippies were they actually had a stronger following in california than any other state probably because they antagonized the hippies and anyone that felt alienated by the hippie movement could listen to the group that defined alienation the velvet s music and performances were dark and abrasive the grateful dead and other san francisco sound bands focused on beautiful melodies where the velvets focused on long droning noises composed of vamps on one or two chords maureen tucker called the dead the most boring band shed ever heard while lou reed said their music was tedious a lie and untalented the velvet underground remained a shape shifting and ultimately widely influential band that came from the bottoms of the society and completely represented that through their art they made music about drugs not traditional sexual practices and other issues of modern life that were rooted in a sense of alienation from the major countercultural narrative of the 1960s even with the recent passing of primary songwriter lou reed their direct influence lives on in popular bands such as the strokes and arctic monkeys and with the advent of the internet their legacy has a potential to continue to spread for the foreseeable future bibliography heylin clinton all yesterdays parties the velvet underground in print 1966 1971 n p de capo press 2006 print hogan peter the rough guide to the velvet underground 1 edition ed n p rough guides 2007 print jovanic rob seeing the light inside the velvet underground n p macmillan 2008 print phoenix william the velvet underground five star flashback examiner n p n d web 14 nov 2013 schindler scott and andy schwartz icons of rock velvet underground the grateful dead frank zappa led zeppelin joni mitchell pink floyd neil young david bowie bruce springsteen ramones u2 nirvana n p greenwood publishing co 2008 print stratton jon http www jstor org stable 3877595 jstor cambridge university press n d web 9 nov 2013 the velvet underground nico the velvet underground nico verve 1967 lp von sacher masoch leopold venus in furs n p 1870 print zak albin the velvet underground companion four decades of commentary n p schirmer trade books 2000 print8