Bimble Says: The Lou Reed Memorial Velvet Underground and Solo Careers Poll RESULTS THREAD

i came out of my crash course in solo Lou so much more interested in Berlin (and The Blue Mask) than Transformer

in a funny way, Lou's solo albums are all aberrations. none of them are like one another until he hits on the Saunders-Quine-Maher combo at the end of the decade.

I hadn't heard Berlin until the day after Lou died. Got immediately hooked on it, and almost put the whole record in my ballot.

ANYWAY y'all ready for some Velvets results now

I had "The Kids" at #3, I believe, on my overall ballot (behind two VU songs). It's overblown, sure, but it destroys me every time.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5513/10916137594_ef63db90d2.jpg

TIE
51. Coyote
1 vote, 50 pts

url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9aW9QVrbhc

Sweet Sister Ray
1 vote, 50 pts

url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLVA6vp_DAM

hmm wait that last youtube isn't right

is this it?
url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFaOyQbDTKs

hahaha my #1 vote for Sweet Sister Ray has paid off

I really truly love the song - the last major thing they they did with Cale aside from the 1968 studio session. Endless replay value, serious guitar work from Sterling especially, jamming til the cows come home, and a wonderful laid back vibe throughout. I may have played this track more than any other Velvets song over the course of my life,

Sweet Sister Ray went to a movie
that had come around
It was the biggest movie
that had ever come to town

Why this is the weirdest movie
I've seen in my days
I've never seen a stranger film anywhere

Why I must be dead
'cause I never felt this way ailve
Oh I've never felt this way
since nineteen fifty-five
Just then Sister Ray
felt a hand on her knee
[I'm] a young crippled orphan
and I come here constantly

Why it's just like a mental hospital
those don't have any locks
Just then comes in the doctor
giving us electroshocks

All the vaseline on your forehead
makes you feel so nice
My hair stood up on end
and I thought I'd been froze(?) with a knife
Oh I'm so pretty
purple earrings and all
No one knew you were crazy
That you told 'em

Just then I saw
a hole in the ground
And I jumped right in
'cause there was no one around

[long instrumental break into "Sister Ray"]

yes that is the one (xp to Shakey)

50. I Love You
3 votes, 60 pts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fYCU40G7Pc

yeah holy shit, sweet sister ray is mesmerizing, a totally one of a kind thing. what did they think they were doing? it just seems so far off from anything, maybe even more radical than the really wild/loud stuff.

oddly enough i've never gotten around to hearing a version of sweet sister ray. iirc the first commercially available version was on the quine tapes, right?

nah, this is the only version of the song that's available. the sister rays on the quine tapes aren't "sweet."

I'd never heard it before this poll

it is a weird thing -- are cale, reed and morrison all playing guitar at points on sweet sister ray? cale switches over to keyboard at some point... is moe even on it?

moe comes in toward the end

she went out to get a sandwich for the first half hour

probably shopping

ha, yeah, she shows up when they start transitioning into the actual sister ray. who knows maybe she's even playing guitar somewhere in there.

xp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHyeXrPUhLY

49. Melody Laughter
2 votes, 62 pts

url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg44BKJhqk0

48. Sad Song
2 votes, 70 pts

url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxLrb-cuFz4

how many vu songs aren't going to make this

47. I'm Not a Young Man Anymore
2 votes, 89 pts

url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a63Qd63PaoM

"Sad Song" is the only instance where I vastly prefer Lou's version (and the Velvets' version is no slouch). It really needs the bombastic arrangement.

how many vu songs aren't going to make this

11

haha, we should poll those after this is done.
no one voted for "ferryboat bill", eh?

I'm not sure if there's a track literally nobody voted for.

my cutoff here was 50 points. the 11 songs that didn't place (incl Ferryboat Bill) got votes, but the total was less than 50

please put a spoiler alert warning before you give out information like 'ferryboat bill didn't place'

the rest of the poll is basically meaningless now

haha oops sorry

that's the short and long of it

Sheltered Life FTW

guys Mo is definitely playing drums on Sweet Sister Ray well before the 20-minute mark, yes it is a bootleg recording but come on now.

by the way, that recording was made by either Jamie Klimek or Peter Laughner, thank you Cleveland underground for preserving history.

If you want to drool over/be tantalized by another allegedly great lost VU song, look up "Sweet Rock And Roll":

http://olivier.landemaine.free.fr/vu/andsoon/lostsongs/lostsongs.html

ha, i wonder if that was the show that my dad walked out of
he was repulsed!

The 44:00 "Sweet Temptation Inside Your Heart," recorded by Ric Ocasek at 4am after a Boston Tea Party show, with Lou on guitar, Doug and Moe on chatter, Sterl on snores.

now hearing sweet sr for the first time. This rules.

guys Mo is definitely playing drums on Sweet Sister Ray well before the 20-minute mark
i don't know, i think what sounds like drums occasionally is actually sorta percussive hits on guitar, if that makes sense.

yeah sounds like strum noise to me too

46. Over You
3 votes, 1 no. 1 vote, 92 pts

url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC-Q6WGslBs

love this one -- wonder why lou never revisited it during the solo years...

45. That's the Story of My Life
6 votes, 95 pts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N6rvkc7yQM

46 was my #1. thought it might go higher, who cares. such a beauty and that solo is so simple yet exquisite

gonna be nothing but great songs from here on out...

and hmm I defer to you actual musicians about the strum noise, maybe Mo did go shopping after all.

xp

ah nice work outdoor_miner! Excellent #1! I was one of the other voters, really love it… almost feels like Lou showing delicate old-fashioned tin pan alley songwriter skills, which are such strange and lovely element in the VU mix.

yeah, lyrically "over you" seems like billie holiday could've sung it.

that's fitting, given the lyrical nods to gershwin ("lady be good" in the chorus to "what goes on") and ellington ("i'm beginning to see the light" as a title and lyrical hook) on the grey album.