‘There She Goes Again’: The Lou Reed song inspired by Marvin Gaye
Lou Reed is always spoken about as being an icon of the New York punk rock scene, and as one of the founding fathers of the genre and movement, but his musical tastes always stretched far beyond the world he was operating in. Seemingly a sponge for all sorts of music that went against the grain and proffered an alternative to the mainstream, there was a constant desire to seek out something exciting and to gain influence from it.
Born in 1942, Reed would’ve been in his most formative years during the 1950s, when rock and roll was becoming an increasingly popular genre in the US. Digging into the stars of the era, such as Bo Diddley and Little Richard, Reed was seemingly infatuated with what this newly-born style of music had to offer. As a teenager, he also explored a love of jazz.
However, this would soon develop into a love of soul and R&B in the following decade, and while he formed The Velvet Underground in 1964, he was still indulging in what these genres had to offer and taking liberal amounts of inspiration from the likes of Otis Redding and Sam Cooke. These influences may have materialised in different fashions and presented them in ways that distanced themselves from being categorised in the same way, but when they were brought to the forefront in the band, they could sometimes be extremely noticeable.
Another artist who Reed professed a love for was Marvin Gaye, so much so that he ended up directly ripping him off for one of the Velvets’ earliest tracks. While it was almost certainly done with complete intention, it was also a gesture of appreciation from Reed towards an icon that he held so dearly and cited as an influence.
The Marvin Gaye track in question is ‘Hitch Hike’, which he released via Tamla in 1962. While the presence of the Vandellas as backing singers on the track working alongside Gaye’s booming vocals is one thing that makes it so timeless, it’s the instantly recognisable stabs in the introduction that are the most frequently referenced part of the song. The Rolling Stones made it clear that they loved the track by performing a cover just two years later, but Reed would look to pay tribute to the track in another way.
The offending song where Reed supposedly copied ‘Hitch Hike’ is ‘There She Goes Again’, taken from the 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. While not following the exact same chord progression, the introduction to the song that Reed wrote sounds remarkably like Gaye’s tune, with the same rhythmic pattern being applied in the opening guitar chords as is done in the horns of ‘Hitch Hike’.
However, it would probably be fair to say that it was a robbery in broad daylight from Reed, and while he has acknowledged that he took the idea from Gaye’s original track, the two end up moving in different directions throughout the remainder of the two songs. It’s a fine reappropriation of a simple string of ten notes, and if it worked for Gaye in making the song immediately recognisable, there was no reason why it couldn’t also work for The Velvet Underground.
