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🍌THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO:

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🍌TRANSFORMER:

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VIDEO INFO: I first attempted this about 12 years ago but abandoned it on the grounds that those who would recognise, let alone appreciate, its value were declining in numbers. I’m pretty sure that if Bing Crosby and Marilyn Monroe were dug out of the deep freeze at Disney World for a double act at a pub 40 yards from my front door, I’d probably check the TV schedules first and the importance of old scraps of Lou Reed footage is similarly subjective and generational. But suddenly Mr. Todd Haynes gets what’s left of the rock music intelligentsia moist in anticipation of an entire glossy movie’s worth of such footage depicting 1960s Lou for Apple TV so I thought it timely to attempt a similar homage, in miniature, to the 70s incarnation.

A casual YouTube search will reveal that there are virtually no visual examples of his best-known hit, let alone contemporaneous to its release and therefore approaching its original dynamic. As with many musicians, especially the more prodigious and temperamental ones, he could be slightly bored by the old setlist formula of saving the two big ones till last so frequently it was not included. It’s not as if he was short of other popular and arguably superior anthems and there was a tendency – perhaps encouraged by the loose, simple but nevertheless striking chord structure that gets abandoned in places for a sax – to employ it as a medley, a bridge to other songs which might take the form of Led Zeppelin’s approach to ‘Whole Lotta Love’ but could equally be treated like the ‘Price Is Right’ theme will act as a jingle to accompany contestants waddling down the sparkly stairs. In short, he didn’t always take it seriously and lamented more than once that it would inevitably be played at his funeral – not an unreasonable suggestion given that it was the highest entry he attained on the Billboard singles chart and likewise their poll of greatest ever songs.

Released as a double A-Side with ‘Perfect Day’ in late 1972 and buoyed by a production contribution from David Bowie and Mick Ronson, it was a radio hit despite the somewhat salacious lyrics (which he mostly got past the censors) and the song which broke him to an audience who in many cases, especially in Europe, were unfamiliar with the Velvet Underground.

From this precise period, there are only two renditions in existence that I’m aware of, both coincidentally recorded at the L'Olympia Paris – one from 1973 which is incomplete and less impressive in terms of performance and audio quality, and this one, recorded 25 May 1974, which has existed for years within the bootleg world, in various states of undress.

Although the audio is super, one of the best versions you’ll hear, the video is less so, shaky, out-of-focus and poorly lit, but I’ve cleaned it up so at least it’s consistently Fair/Poor and the gloomy monochrome is arguably in keeping with both the clandestine subject matter of the song and the iconic imagery of the album sleeve. It’s certainly better than most of the alternatives…


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I do not own the original recording or the rights to it. The material was available for public broadcast and not subject to copyright restrictions in its’s country of origin.
Furthermore, under United Kingdom copyright law; ‘Fair Dealing’ is an exception which allows for the use of copyrighted works without licensing in certain circumstances. It is governed by Sections 29 and 30 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which provide three types of situation in which fair dealing is a valid defence: (i) where the use is for the purposes of research or private study, (ii) where it is to allow for criticism or review, and (iii) where it is for the purpose of reporting current events.
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