The sexual revolution that gave The Velvet Underground their name
Whilst taboo-busting has always been intrinsic to rock and roll, nobody did it better than The Velvet Underground. They created boundary-pushing music, with its roots in New York’s experimental scene, and fused it with frontman Lou Reed’s surreal lyrics about the darker side of life, including sadomasochism and drug taking. For their time, the quartet were remarkably against the grain regarding what a traditional band should be.
Not concerned with the whimsical psychedelia of their day or the sugary pop that topped the charts, The Velvet Underground were the first group to get real with music, which saw them become one of the most influential bands of all time. Their pull is so extensive that Lou Reed and the band are deemed both avant-garde and proto-punk, two areas that would typically be at stylistic loggerheads.
Given their dedication to shining a light on the filth inherent to humanity, it made sense that the band’s name should come from an appropriate area. The Velvet Underground was taken from the 1963 book of the same name by journalist Michael Leigh, a mass-market paperback about the secret sexual subculture of the era.
In the book, Leigh investigates “aberrant” sexual behaviour between consenting adults – anything outside of simple intercourse conducted in privacy by heterosexual couples. It includes partner swapping, group sex, orgy parties, sadomasochism, and homosexual activities. Leigh reports on the many ways these practices are solicited, such as clubs and newspaper adverts, and follows the leads in order to speak to participants.
Leigh’s book aims to reflect that a shift in sexual attitudes was taking place in American society, which not only allowed a large portion of the population to take part in non-traditional sexual practices but also normalised them as healthy and normal. Notably, a central part of the book references a 1961 article from France’s Espirit magazine, which labels this newfound liberal attitude towards sex the sexual revolution.
The story goes that members Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison and John Cale’s friend, the filmmaker Tony Conrad, found a copy of the book in the street and showed it to the band. In the years since, Morrison has said that they liked the name, as it evoked the essence of “underground cinema” and fit their developing style. At the time, Reed had already penned ‘Venus in Furs’, a song referencing Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s sadomasochist book of the same name.
In November 1965, the group immediately adopted The Velvet Underground as their new name, giving them a perfect base to push on from. Speaking to Open City in 1969, Reed described Leigh’s book as “the funniest dirty book I’ve ever read”.
Listen to ‘Venus in Furs’ by The Velvet Underground below.
