Ever since I read my first Internet encyclopedia articles on Soundgarden back in the dial-up days, I’ve been meaning to check out The Velvet Underground, who were frequently cited as influences to these and other amazing artists. That means I’ve procrastinated on right-clicking those links for fifteen years. Today I finally read an article that included a brief history of The Velvet Underground because it was a rock and roll obituary for Lou Reed.
Until today, the only song I’ve knowingly enjoyed by this artist is his cover of “This Magic Moment,” but after reading the below paragraph from Andrew Barker’s excellent article in Variety, I had to listen to “Heroin” because the description was strikingly familiar…
“While gently arpeggiating a simple two-chord pattern, Reed charted a stream-of-consciousness monologue that wound through the regrets, hopeless dreams and desperate justifications of a user in the act of injecting, while, as musical counterpoint, the song’s tempo gradually increased and Cale’s low, ambient electric viola built to squalls of feedback, drowning out all the other instruments.”
Well, shit – Rammstein’s Till Lindemann must’ve been one of the 30,000 people who bought The Velvet Undergound’s debut album in the first five years because the lyrics to my favorite Rammstein song, “Adios,” describe an addict and his relationship with the drug as such:
| Er nimmt die Nadel von der Ader | He takes the needle from the vein |
| die Melodie fährt aus der Haut | the melody travels out of the skin |
| Geigen brennen mit Gekreisch | violins burn with shrieking |
| Harfen schneiden sich ins Fleisch | harps cut the flesh |
| er hat die Augen aufgemacht | he has opened his eyes |
| doch er ist nicht aufgewacht | but he is not awake |
[translation taken from here.]
I wish I had something more profound to add besides pointing out the obvious with a sledgehammer here. I just got so excited when I read that paragraph because I love discovering connections between artists that seem as disparate as Lou Reed and Rammstein. (I had not heard about the Metallica collaboration until just now.) Then again, The Velvet Underground repeatedly show up in my research as artists who influenced a lot of my musical heroes like PJ Harvey and Layne Staley, what with Reed’s “streetwise switchblade poet persona.” Who could resist being inspired by that?
If it hadn’t taken a decade and a half for me to finally follow up on those links, I might’ve enjoyed Rammstein’s nod and felt smarter. Lord knows I don’t need any help being smug and pretentious, but you, dear reader, will probably find it worth your time to hit the Wikipedia article linked above if you’re any kind of rock and roll poetry lover at all.
So Lou Reed, I hardly knew thee, but thank you for breaking open the inhibitions of the many wonderful artists who would rise in your wake. I owe some of the best of my music collection to your work.
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