The Velvet Underground begins: The novelty song that launched Lou Reed
The world of Lou Reed is one marred with contradictions. The singer-songwriter and all-around cultural icon is now considered one of the foundational stones of modern music, but for many of his formative years in the business, his ability to write subversive pop ditties was swept away like cheap garbage. His group, The Velvet Underground, would find little fame in comparison to their noted influence on music, yet they remain one of the most seminal outfits ever constructed.
Lou Reed was always destined for a firm role in rock and roll history. The singer may have had a stellar solo career, but his work with John Cale and The Velvet Underground affirmed his position as the king of the underground. Despite their sprawling and subversive influence on countless rock musicians, the band actually formed around a novelty song which Lou Reed had written during his time with Pickwick Records.
Before Lou Reed became a songwriting sensation and a bonafide member of the royal family of New York’s underbelly with the Velvet Underground, he was writing songs to pay the bills. Far removed from the VU and even his early doo-wop band, The Jades, Reed was writing songs for Pickwick Records, which were designed to do one thing and one thing only: provide a simple way for teenagers with newfound streams of cash to part with it on a Saturday morning visit to the local record store.
Reed worked as the in-house musician for Pickwick Records, starting his professional musical career in the early 1960s, churning out ten-a-penny records for supermarkets and convenience stores. These pieces were not meant to have any artistic merit but, much like the jingles that surrounded the supermarket shelves, were designed to stick in your head, provide a whiff of a smile and then remove the cents from your wallet that were required to take it home.
It wasn’t exactly Reed’s most creative period. A gun for hire, at least in his chosen field, the songwriter made the most of his situation and went about his work. However, one track would provide a pathway to the greatness seemingly laid out before him. During this time, he wrote a joke song called ‘The Ostrich’ as a way of spoofing the well-known pop track, ‘The Twist’.
Originally only an in-studio side project, the track about a fake novelty dance grabbed enough interest to form a band for a few live gigs. Amazingly enough, that touring version of The Primitives featured John Cale, Tony Conrad, and Walter DeMaria. While sadly, the dance has never made it to video, Reed did make a recording of the song with his band, The Primitives.
The track, along with the “ostrich tuning” that the song had spawned, whereby all the strings were tuned to D, did a great job of putting Cale and Reed working alongside each other. Cale had himself been experimenting with a similar style, and this connection seemed to form the basis of their friendship. It would go on to help form The Velvet Underground as we know it.
While ‘The Ostrich’ is at least a few notches on the dial away from the sounds and shapes created by The Velvet Underground in their pomp, there are some similarities, too. The subversion of a popular dance, the sardonic undercurrent and the pop stylings are all just as present in Reed’s later work, even if the subject matter is far darker. While Pickwick Record would likely have felt close to a prison in his early years, it would actually be the key to setting Reed free and on to a path toward his now-confirmed legendary status.
