Velvet Underground Quotes

The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band

I want to be able to listen to recording of piano sonatas and know who's playing. I want to go to classical concerts and know when you're meant to clap. I want to be able to 'get' modern jazz without it all sounding like this terrible mistake, and I want to know who the Velvet Underground are exactly. I want to be fully engaged in the World of Ideas, I want to understand complex economics, and what people see in Bob Dylan. I want to possess radical but humane and well-informed political ideals, and I want to hold passionate but reasoned debates round wooden kitchen tables, saying things like 'define your terms!' and 'your premise is patently specious!' and then suddenly to discover that the sun's come up and we've been talking all night. I want to use words like 'eponymous' and 'solipsistic' and 'utilitarian' with confidence. I want to learn to appreciate fine wines, and exotic liquers, and fine single malts, and learn how to drink them without turning into a complete div, and to eat strange and exotic foods, plovers' eggs and lobster thermidor, things that sound barely edible, or that I can't pronounce...Most of all I want to read books; books thick as brick, leather-bound books with incredibly thin paper and those purple ribbons to mark where you left off; cheap, dusty, second-hand books of collected verse, incredibly expensive, imported books of incomprehensible essays from foregin universities. At some point I'd like to have an original idea...And all of these are the things that a university education's going to give me.

Everybody gets a tag. If you listen to a Velvet Underground record, you don't think, 'Godfathers of Punk.' You just think, 'This sounds great.' The tags are there in order to help try to sell something by giving it a name that's going to stick in somebody's memory. But it doesn't describe it. So 'depressing' isn't a word I would use to describe my music. But there is some sadness in it -- there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter.

And then I think of the Velvet Underground's doleful song "Jesus," from their third and least renowned or appreciated album. It is my favorite. "Jesus / Help me find my proper place / Help me in my weakness / 'Cause I'm falling out of grace." The only words in the song, repeated repeatedly, composed by Lou Reed, a Jew. You see, in the hour of darkness, it is easier to turn to the Son of God than to God Himself, for some reason. I'm not sure why.

It was around this time that I’d begun trying to perfect the art of fucking with people’s minds. I’d figured out that when someone else was hogging the limelight, you could cut him down to size by bringing up a subject he didn’t know anything about. If the other person knew a lot about literature, I’d talk about the Velvet Underground; if he knew a lot about rock, I’d talk about Messiaen; if he knew a lot about classical music, I’d talk about Roy Lichtenstein; if he knew a lot about pop art, I’d talk about Jean Genet; and so on. Do that in a small provincial city and you never lose an argument.

The Plastic People of the Universe played 'Venus in Furs' from Velvet Underground, and I knew everything was basically okay.

For careers you say you went to be remembered for your art Your obsessions get you known throughout the school for being strange Making life-size models of the Velvet Underground in clay

Sometimes they ask if you want to hook up your iPod for background music. Do not do this. It's a trap. They'll put it on shuffle, and no matter how much Beastie Boys or Velvet Underground you have on there, the following four tracks will play in a row; "We'd Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover" from Annie, "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips, "That's What Friends Are For, Various Artists, and "We'd Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover" from Annie.

What would the fearsome Lou Reed insist on? Boys? Girls? Drugs? No, kielbasa.

What’s a Velvet Underground?” he said. “You wouldn’t like it,” said Crowley. “Oh,” said the angel dismissively. “Be-bop.

She felt her cheeks curve into a smile, trying to imagine what he was listening to. Probably Coil, or Kraftwerk. The Velvet Underground. A TED Talk on water-efficient landscaping. Whale noises.

Bob Neuwirth: In his depravity, Lou was dignified. Dignified depravity.

That name. But Sofiya Volkova no longer exists. I left her back there, shut up in that place with the staircase leading deep underground, the velvet walls, the locked room.

With the indie kids you have to remember this: they really think that what they do matters in some way. They reckon that history will care. (They don’t know that history will have other shit to be getting on with.) The indie kids figure that they’re passing on the torch or some fucking thing. That, just as they were influenced by someone—the Velvet Underground, Jonathan Richman, the Stooges, whoever—then, in the future, young bands will be influenced by them. Maybe so. Maybe a few thousand malnourished cockless freaks scattered around the globe will give a shit. So what? Real people don’t..

The sitting room is subdued, symmetrical; it’s one of the shapes money takes when it freezes. Money has trickled through this room for years and years, as if through an underground cavern, crusting and hardening like stalactites into these forms. Mutely the varied surfaces present themselves: the dusk-rose velvet of the drawn drapes, the gloss of the matching chairs, eighteenth century, the cow’s-tongue hush of the tufted Chinese rug on the floor, with its peach-pink peonies, the suave leather of the Commander’s chair, the glint of brass on the box beside it.

I'm Set Free" I've been set free and I've been bound To the memories of yesterday's clouds I've been set free and I've been bound And now I'm set free I'm set free I'm set free to find a new illusion I've been blinded but You I can see What in the world has happened to me The prince of stories who walk right by me And now I'm set free I'm set free I'm set free to find a new illusion I've been set free and I've been bound Let me tell you people What I found I saw my head laughing Rolling on the ground And now I'm set free I'm set free I'm set free to find a new illusion

The funny thing: I’d worried, if anything, that Boris was the one who was a little too affectionate, if affectionate is the right word. The first time he’d turned in bed and draped an arm over my waist, I lay there half-asleep for a moment, not knowing what to do: staring at my old socks on the floor, empty beer bottles, my paperbacked copy of The Red Badge of Courage. At last—embarrassed—I faked a yawn and tried to roll away, but instead he sighed and pulled me closer, with a sleepy, snuggling motion. Ssh, Potter, he whispered, into the back of my neck. Is only me. It was weird. Was it weird? It was; and it wasn’t. I’d fallen back to sleep shortly after, lulled by his bitter, beery unwashed smell and his breath easy in my ear. I was aware I couldn’t explain it without making it sound like more than it was. On nights when I woke strangled with fear there he was, catching me when I started up terrified from the bed, pulling me back down in the covers beside him, muttering in nonsense Polish, his voice throaty and strange with sleep. We’d drowse off in each other’s arms, listening to music from my iPod (Thelonious Monk, the Velvet Underground, music my mother had liked) and sometimes wake clutching each other like castaways or much younger children. And yet (this was the murky part, this was what bothered me) there had also been other, way more confusing and fucked-up nights, grappling around half-dressed, weak light sliding in from the bathroom and everything haloed and unstable without my glasses: hands on each other, rough and fast, kicked-over beers foaming on the carpet—fun and not that big of a deal when it was actually happening, more than worth it for the sharp gasp when my eyes rolled back and I forgot about everything; but when we woke the next morning stomach-down and groaning on opposite sides of the bed it receded into an incoherence of backlit flickers, choppy and poorly lit like some experimental film, the unfamiliar twist of Boris’s features fading from memory already and none of it with any more bearing on our actual lives than a dream. We never spoke of it; it wasn’t quite real; getting ready for school we threw shoes, splashed water at each other, chewed aspirin for our hangovers, laughed and joked around all the way to the bus stop. I knew people would think the wrong thing if they knew, I didn’t want anyone to find out and I knew Boris didn’t either, but all the same he seemed so completely untroubled by it that I was fairly sure it was just a laugh, nothing to take too seriously or get worked up about. And yet, more than once, I had wondered if I should step up my nerve and say something: draw some kind of line, make things clear, just to make absolutely sure he didn’t have the wrong idea. But the moment had never come. Now there was no point in speaking up and being awkward about the whole thing, though I scarcely took comfort in the fact.

To sit indoors was silly. I postponed the search for Savchenko and Ludmila till the next day and went wandering about Paris. The men wore bowlers, the women huge hats with feathers. On the café terraces lovers kissed unconcernedly - I stopped looking away. Students walked along the boulevard St. Michel. They walked in the middle of the street, holding up traffic, but no one dispersed them. At first I thought it was a demonstration - but no, they were simply enjoying themselves. Roasted chestnuts were being sold. Rain began to fall. The grass in the Luxembourg gardens was a tender green. In December! I was very hot in my lined coat. (I had left my boots and fur cap at the hotel.) There were bright posters everywhere. All the time I felt as though I were at the theatre. I have lived in Paris off and on for many years. Various events, snatches of conversation have become confused in my memory. But I remember well my first day there: the city electrified my. The most astonishing thing is that is has remained unchanged; Moscow is unrecognizable, but Paris is still as it was. When I come to Paris now, I feel inexpressibly sad - the city is the same, it is I who have changed. It is painful for me to walk along the familiar streets - they are the streets of my youth. Of course, the fiacres, the omnibuses, the steam-car disappeared long ago; you rarely see a café with red velvet or leather settees; only a few pissoirs are left - the rest have gone into hiding underground. But these, after all, are minor details. People still live out in the streets, lovers kiss wherever they please, no one takes any notice of anyone. The old houses haven't changed - what's another half a century to them; at their age it makes no difference. Say what you will, the world has changed, and so the Parisians, too, must be thinking of many things of which they had no inkling in the old days: the atom bomb, mass-production methods, Communism. But with their new thoughts they still remain Parisians, and I am sure that if an eighteen-year-old Soviet lad comes to Paris today he will raise his hands in astonishment, as I did in 1908: "A theatre!

his hands moved busily among the puppets, choosing, discarding, until they pounced finally on the moon with her crystal eyes and her hands shaped like stars. 'I will be the moon,' Kyel said. 'You must make a wish to me.' Lydea slid her fingers into the fox's head, with its sly smile and fiery velvet pelt. 'I wish,' she said, 'that you would take your nap.' 'No,' the prince said patiently, 'you must make a true wish. And I will grant it because I am the moon.' 'Then I must make a fox's wish. I wish for an open door to every hen house, and the ability to jump into trees.' The moon sank onto the blue hillock of Kyel's knee. 'Why?' 'So that I can escape the farmer's dogs when they run after me.' 'Then you should wish,' the prince said promptly, 'that you could jump as high as the moon.' 'A good wish. But there are no hens on the moon, and how would I get back to Ombria?' The moon rose again, lifted a golden hand. 'On a star.' The governess smiled. The fox stroked the prince's hair while he shook away the moon and replaced it with the sorceress, who had one amethyst eye and one emerald, and who wore a black cloak that shimmered with ribbons of faint, changing colors. 'I am the sorceress who lives underground,' the prince said. 'Is there really a sorceress who lives underground?' 'So they --' Lydea checked herself, let the fox speak. 'So they say, my lord.' 'How does she live? Does she have a house?' She paused again, glimpsing a barely remembered tale. 'I think she does. Maybe even her own city beneath Ombria. Some say that she has an ancient enemy, who appears during harsh and perilous times in Ombria's history. Then and only then does the sorceress make her way out of her underground world to fight the evil and restore hope to Ombria.' ... The sorceress descended, long nose down on the silk. Kyel picked another puppet up, looked at it silently a moment. The queen of pirates, whose black nails curved like scimitars, whose hair was a rigid knoll in which she kept her weapons, stared back at him out of glittering onyx eyes.

Femme Fatale" Here she comes, you better watch your step She's going to break your heart in two, it's true It's not hard to realize Just look into her false colored eyes She builds you up to just put you down, what a clown 'Cause everybody knows (She's a femme fatale) The things she does to please (She's a femme fatale) She's just a little tease (She's a femme fatale) See the way she walks Hear the way she talks You're put down in her book You're number thirty seven, have a look She's going to smile to make you frown, what a clown Little boy, she's from the street Before you start, you're already beat She's going to play you for a fool, yes it's true 'Cause everybody knows (She's a femme fatale) The things she does to please (She's a femme fatale) She's just a little tease (She's a femme fatale) See the way she walks Hear the way she talks 'Cause everybody knows (She's a femme fatale) The things she does to please (She's a femme fatale) She's just a little tease (She's a femme fatale) Ooh ooh oh (She's a femme fatale) Ooh ooh oh

Over You" Here I go again Just gonna play it like a fool again Here I go again Over you Over you I'm just like a bell again You know, I'm starting to ring again Here I go again Over you Over you Typically, when I had it Treated it like dirt Now, naturally, when I don't have it I am chasing less and less rainbows Here we go again I guess, I'm like a fool again Here I go again Over you Over you Over you Over you ...

Sweet Jane" Standing on the corner, suitcase in my hand Jack is in his corset, and Jane is in her vest, and, me I'm in a rock'n'roll band. Huh Ridin' in a Stutz-Bearcat, Jim Y'know, those were different times Oh, all the poet, they studied rules of verse And the ladies, they rolled their eyes Sweet Jane! Whoa! Sweet Jane, oh-oh-a! Sweet Jane I'll tell you something Jack, he is a banker And Jane, she is a clerk Both of them save their monies, ha And when, when they come home from work Ooh! Sittin' down by the fire, oh The radio does play The classical music there, Jim "The March of the Wooden Soldiers" All you protest kids You can hear Jack say, get ready, ah Sweet Jane! Come on baby! Sweet Jane! Oh-oh-a! Sweet Jane Some people, they like to go out dancing And other peoples, they have to work. Just watch me now And there's even some evil mothers Well they're gonna tell you that everything is just dirt Y'know that, women, never really faint And that villains always blink their eyes, woo And that, y'know, children are the only ones who blush And that, life is, just to die And, everyone who ever had a heart, oh That wouldn't turn around and break it And anyone who ever played a part, whoa And wouldn't turn around and hate it Sweet Jane! Whoa-oh-oh! Sweet Jane! Sweet Jane. Sweet Jane Sweet Jane. Sweet Jane

The Ocean" Here comes the ocean And the waves down by the sea Here comes the ocean And the waves where have they been Silver and black lit night, here's to a stealer's night An empty splendid castle Glowering alone at night, the princess has had a fight Madness seeks out a lover And here come the waves Down by the shore Washing the soul of the body That comes form the depth of the sea Here comes the ocean And the waves down by the sea Here comes the ocean And the waves where have they been Don't swim tonight my love, the tide is out my love Malcolm's curse haunts our family Odious loud and rich, ruler of filthy seas Revel in heaven's justice And here come the waves And save for a scream There's much like a song to be heard In the wind that blows by the sea Like the wind Here come the waves Here come the waves Here come the waves Here come the waves

NEW YORK (22. decembar) Lou Reedov album “New York” dobio sam na poklon za rođendan 1990. godine, dok se zagrijavao haos iz kojega do danas nismo izašli. Ništa nisam slutio, danima sam svakodnevno slušao tu ploču i sve na njoj volio. Kad sam prestao, nisam je više niti jednom stavio na gramofon. Uvijek je nešto bilo preče od nje. Večeras sam je izvadio iz najlona. Na vinilu se skupila sitna prašina, decenijama stara. Četka ju je lako pokupila i ploča je zasvirala kao nova. I dalje znam svaki refren, riff, solo na gitari, i dalje mi se sve na toj ploči sviđa. Kao da se ništa nije promijenilo od tada. A onda vidim posvetu na omotu. Mnogi dragi ljudi odavno su otišli iz Bosne i Hercegovine. Prije nekoliko godina bio sam u New Yorku, nakratko, možda tri ili četiri dana. Odlučio sam da ne obilazim turističke lokacije. Lutao sam, bez ikakvog plana, nasumično skretao u uličice, kratko odmarao u barovima i Starbucks kafeima, pa nastavljao pješačenje. Mislio sam da tako mogu bolje osjetiti taj veliki grad. Moje lutanje nije bilo sasvim bez cilja, tražio sam prodavnicu ploča. Planirao sam da kupim neku tipičnu njujoršku ploču, albume Ramonesa ili New York Dollsa, “Marquee Moon” od Television, ili bilo koji Reedov album. Želio sam to bude prvo izdanje, nije trebalo biti pretjerano očuvano, ne bi mi smetale ni sitne ogrebotine niti ljepljiva traka, tražio sam predmet sa tragom vremena na sebi. Bio bi to, mislio sam, idealan suvenir. Našao sam tobacco shop u kojem je desetak tipova nalik na Wu Tang Clan ozbiljno pućkalo iz lula, comic shop sa figurama Batmana od par hiljada dolara, popio kafu sa rastafarijancem od tri metra koji se zove Dino i kojem je bilo jako smiješno moje ime na Starbucks čaši... U ulici skupih cipela, stisnutu između dva bara sa live muzikom, naišao sam na neobičnu prodavnicu. U izlogu je imala samo kartonske maske klaunova, suncobran, ogromne rugby lopte i ofucane plišane pse, a unutra gomilu starih novina u koje je zabodena američka zastava. Prodavac sa staromodnim cvikerom na nosu razgledao je staklenu bočicu kao da je dragulj. Sada nisam siguran, možda je ta prodavnica bila u Washingtonu ili nije bila nigdje, ali tako je se sjećam. Bilo kako bilo, prodavnicu ploča koju sam tražio, nisam uspio naći. Odavno je prošla ponoć i odjednom sam shvatio da sam zaboravio broj avenije, ulice, pa i naziv hotela. Možda zbog jet laga, uzbuđenja, umora, par votki i previše kafe? Ne znam, ali nisam brinuo, vjerovao sam da ću se sjetiti tokom večeri. Stao sam ispred jedne pepeljare na trotoaru, zapalio cigaretu da bih razmislio, okrenuo se i vidio da se nalazim baš ispred hotela u kojem sam odsjeo. Sergej Dovlatov je New York uporedio sa brodom napunjenim milionima putnika, gradom toliko raznolikim da svaki došljak pomisli da u njemu može pronaći kutak za sebe. Odatle, pisao je, čovjek može pobjeći samo na mjesec. Meni u New Yorku niti u jednom momentu nije bilo neugodno. Ništa me nije plašilo u tom gradu, niti sam se u njemu osjećao kao stranac. Kući sam donio samo otvarač za flaše u obliku “Les Paula” i moju fotografiju ulaza u podzemnu željeznicu, koji izgleda baš kao onaj sa omota albuma “Loaded” grupe Velvet Underground. Donio sam i ovu mutnu, nepouzdanu uspomenu. Življe sjećanje na New York daje mi moja stara “Jugoton” ploča.

What’s inside the Liberty Bell?” she asked him. “Well, it had better be empty,” he told the kids. “Are you absolutely sure?” Christina asked. “I noticed that it’s more than two feet off the ground. I could imagine a little boy—about my brother’s size—sneaking under the velvet rope and leaving a wad of bubble gum inside.” “Oh you can, can you?” said the ranger. He turned and glared at Grant. “Did you put gum in the Liberty Bell, young man?

Naomi took down the instructions, confirmed her cell phone number, and put the bag in the plastic bin headed to the lab. As Hailey left, Naomi turned the music back on. “Who is that?” Hailey asked. “Velvet Underground,” Naomi said. “Cool, huh?” “Very,” Hailey agreed, though she wasn’t sure if it was cool or awful.

She looked resplendent in robes of black velvet. Her arms remained bare despite the underground chill, and her moonbeam hair

And I guess that I just don't know.

I began to recall my own experience when I was Mercutio’s age (late teens I decided, a year or two older than Romeo) as a pupil at a public school called Christ’s Hospital. This school is situated in the idyllic countryside of the Sussex Weald, just outside Horsham. I recalled the strange blend of raucousness and intellect amongst the cloisters, the fighting, the sport, and general sense of rebelliousness, of not wishing to seem conventional (this was the sixties); in the sixth form (we were called Grecians) the rarefied atmosphere, the assumption that of course we would go to Oxford or Cambridge; the adoption of an ascetic style, of Zen Buddhism, of baroque opera, the Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, and Mahler; of Pound, Eliot and e. e. cummings. We perceived the world completely through art and culture. We were very young, very wise, and possessed of a kind of innocent cynicism. We wore yellow stockings, knee breeches, and an ankle length dark blue coat, with silver buttons. We had read Proust, we had read Evelyn Waugh, we knew what was what. There was a sense, fostered by us and by many teachers, that we were already up there with Lamb, Coleridge, and all the other great men who had been educated there. We certainly thought that we soared ‘above a common bound’. I suppose it is a process of constant mythologizing that is attempted at any public school. Tom Brown’s Schooldays is a good example. Girls were objects of both romantic and purely sexual, fantasy; beautiful, distant, mysterious, unobtainable, and, quite simply, not there. The real vessel for emotional exchange, whether sexually expressed or not, were our own intense friendships with each other. The process of my perceptions of Mercutio intermingling with my emotional memory continued intermittently, up to and including rehearsals. I am now aware that that possibly I re-constructed my memory somewhat, mythologised it even, excising what was irrelevant, emphasising what was useful, to accord with how I was beginning to see the part, and what I wanted to express with it. What I was seeing in Mercutio was his grief and pain at impending separation from Romeo, so I suppose I sensitised myself to that period of my life when male bonding was at its strongest for me.

Rising S, a Texas-based company, does build bare-bones underground shelters for that crowd. But since 2012, Lynch has been catering to a different group—wealthy citizens who want all the comforts and amenities of home if and when catastrophe strikes. “We’ve revolutionized the bomb shelter,” he told me. “Everybody was building cold and clammy structures, with no color, no nothing, just a storm shelter with some shelves. You could drive to work in a Kia but what if you want a Mercedes and can afford it? Our clients are like that.” Lynch’s upscale clients share the view that society is splintering and fear the consequences for the privileged in a world where the collective trust in public institutions has weakened. It’s a dark take on American society, but one that keeps Rising S’s nearly 100,000-square-foot factory humming with new orders. “We are one unjustified police shooting away from having riots across the United States,” Lynch said. “A lot of people are worried about war, social and civil unrest.” So far, that’s meant building an underground swimming pool for one client, while another ordered a hidden stable to keep his valuable stud horses safe.

Hey, ho, let’s go: Joey Ramone and Dee Dee Ramone, Bowery, 1977. Photo by GODLIS.

Haircut & attitude: Miss Guy, Toilet Boys, 1999. Photo by Frank White.

I am tired, I am weary. I could sleep for a thousand years, a thousand dreams that would awake me. Different colors made of tears. The Velvet Underground, from “Venus In Furs," The Velvet Underground & Nico. Produced by Andy Warhol (Verve, 1967)

The photographer will ask you what kind of music you want to play during the shoot. Remember that whatever you choose will be blasted through the loft and heard by an entire crew of people who are all so cool that the Board of Ed. officially closed school. Just murmur, “Hip-hop,” or make up the name of a hipster-sounding band and then act superior when they’ve never heard of it. “Do you guys have any Asphalt of Pinking? [disappointed] Really? [shrug] Whatever you want, then.” Sometimes they ask if you want to hook up your iPod for background music. Do not do this. It’s a trap. They’ll put it on shuffle, and no matter how much Beastie Boys or Velvet Underground you have on there, the following four tracks will play in a row: “We’d Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover” from Annie, “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips, “That’s What Friends Are For,” Various Artists, and “We’d Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover” from Annie.

IGGY POP: The first time I heard the Velvet Underground and Nico record was at a party on the University of Michigan campus. I just hated the sound. You know, “HOW COULD ANYBODY MAKE A RECORD THAT SOUNDS LIKE SUCH A PIECE OF SHIT? THIS IS DISGUSTING! ALL THESE PEOPLE MAKE ME FUCKING SICK! FUCKING DISGUSTING HIPPIE VERMIN! FUCKING BEATNIKS, I WANNA KILL THEM ALL! THIS JUST SOUNDS LIKE TRASH!” Then about six months later it hit me. “Oh my god! WOW! This is just a fucking great record!” That record became very key for me, not just for what it said, and for how great it was,