The Velvet Underground song that Moe Tucker calls “infuriating”
Nothing made by The Velvet Underground was meant to be neat and tidy. Throughout their run in the late 1960s, Lou Reed’s odes to life in the gutter were some of the most unprofessional rock recordings ever produced, causing major music publications to write them off as too incompetent for the big-time. What those critics at the time weren’t listening to, however, was just how nasty the band sounded on the record.
Although the band’s debut, The Velvet Underground and Nico, starts with the warm sounds of ‘Sunday Morning’, that’s one of the few hopeful tracks on the album. As the rest of the record plays out, Reed reveals some of the most frayed ends of his personality, culminating in the track ‘Heroin’. Despite only using two chords throughout its entire runtime, Reed paints a disturbing picture of what the life of a junkie is supposed to be like, as the band go from lackadaisical playing to some of the most intense sections of their career. The effect is the ultimate musical version of what a heroin high feels like, but Maureen Tucker wasn’t that impressed with the final results.
During the original recording, Tucker mentioned that she thought the band was warming up due to some of the harsh noise and decided to stop midway through the song, telling What Goes On: “I just stopped. I was saying, ‘This is no good, this isn’t gonna work; we need phones or something.’ So, I stopped, and being a little wacky, they just kept going – and that’s the one we took. And it’s infuriating because you’ve seen us live, that’s a bitch, that song. I consider that our greatest triumph”.
Although Tucker might not have liked the final version on the record, her going missing for a portion of the track works to the song’s advantage. Since Reed is talking about the harsh reality of succumbing to heroin addiction, Tucker’s drums dropping out may as well be the sensation of feeling one’s heart stop when that spike drives into his veins.
This song would only be a drop in the bucket for the insane material on the record. Before ‘Heroin’, Reed sings about scoring some drugs in ‘I’m Waiting For the Man’, singing from a street corner waiting for his dealer. Elsewhere, ‘Venus in Furs’ talks about the pleasures of S&M, bringing in the whips and chains imagery as Reed sounds desperate for some painful satisfaction.
Then again, Tucker would have another chance to prove herself behind the kit in the studio. On the band’s sophomore effort, White Light/ White Heat, Tucker drives the album’s centrepiece ‘Sister Ray’, creating a cacophony that feels like the listener is hearing the song after all their nerve endings have been exposed. Tucker would find time to branch out even more on the band’s self-titled record, closing up shop with the pillowy tune ‘After Hours’.
Although Tucker might have made her peace with the final recording of ‘Heroin’, she still finds it hard to revisit the naive studio environment, saying, “‘Heroin’ drives me nuts. That’s such a good song. I remember getting chills whenever we played it, and to listen to it on the album, it’s really depressing.”
