John Cale’s favourite John Lennon song
Nobody altered the face of popular music in the same way as The Beatles. Liverpool’s finest changed everything, with few bands even coming close to emulating the same impact. However, one group that had a similar effect on the world of alternative music was The Velvet Underground, with Lou Reed and John Cale at the helm.
If you look at the spread of alternative rock, punk, and indie music over the past five decades, pretty much all of it can be traced back to the pioneering sounds of The Velvet Underground. From their New York beginnings, Reed and Cale would go on to influence everybody from David Bowie to Arctic Monkeys. Although Reed is often thought of as the leader of the pack, it was Cale’s experimental leanings that made the first two records timeless classics.
As kings of the New York underground, it would be safe to assume that The Velvet Underground had a kind of arrogant disdain for The Beatles, who represented the mainstream of pop music at the time. As Cale told Uncut in 2015, this assumption is not far off from the truth, “There was always this competition between the [Rolling] Stones and The Beatles. Even though The Beatles could be brilliant, the Velvets would always side with the Stones, because they were darker, rougher.”
According to the Welsh multi-instrumentalist, his perception of the group changed with the release of Revolver in 1966, favouring one track in particular, “‘She Said She Said’ turned up and I could see The Beatles were changing. Lou [Reed] and I looked at each other and realised something was happening, which we zeroed in on,” Cale explained, “The way Lennon did it seemed so natural. It was obviously not just something he made up his mind to do, it was always part of who he was.”
Reportedly, Lennon was inspired to write the track by actor Peter Fonda’s recollection of an LSD trip he had spent with members of The Byrds and the Fab Four. This, like much of Revolver, gives the track a trippy, acid-like feel. Expanding upon his love of the track, Cale continued, “It’s got a very tricky time signature. He stops the beat at one point, which made me sit up. The mindset was so unusual – ‘you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born’. This is nihilism.”
Despite being at the forefront of the pop mainstream, Lennon was influential on the alternative icon. “What I liked about Lennon was his terseness,” Cale explained, “He could make a point very fast. I love that ability to be very piercing and savage. You get a physical sense of something from him. As soon as I saw him play, it was there too. He used his entire body when he sang.”
So, although in a musical sense, you might not link the ruthless experimentation of John Cale with pop superstars The Beatles, John Lennon had an undeniable impact on the songwriter. His love for Lennon’s dedication to performance is a testament to the unimaginably broad influence of The Beatles on virtually all future musical generations.
