What is the greatest one-take track ever?
The entire studio environment can be a little scary for anyone going into a recording for the first time, even experienced rock stars. The microphones and the red lights that come on during a session can give anyone cold feet, but when they start getting into the zone and finding the right idea for a song, it can go from a stressful process to one of the easiest workdays anyone has ever gone through. But even for all the stress that comes with getting something exactly right, some tracks benefit from the one-take wonders of the world.
There are so many opportunities for people to tighten up their performances, but sometimes it’s better to realise when the song works better in its purest form. It may have seemed smarter for someone to work on a song until it sounded perfect, but there’s a particular energy that gets captured whenever someone plays a song the first go-around that can never happen again once the tape starts rolling a second time.
While a lot of the greatest names in music have to work with what they have and rely on first takes so they don’t waste too much money, that doesn’t mean they don’t commit. The Beatles had already gone through the entire Please Please Me album in one day when John Lennon recorded his final vocal for ‘Twist and Shout’, but the final version of the tune is all the better knowing that his voice was about to tear itself apart.
The Fab Four could definitely hold the title of the best one-take song ever, but that’s still a classic pop song format. They managed to capture lightning in a bottle for those few seconds, but we would have to wait a few years for The Velvet Underground to come along and show everyone what the real potential of the studio sounded like.
So, what was the best one-take song the Velvet Underground recorded?
Although the New York legend’s debut album was considered one of the strangest art-rock projects of its time, White Light/White Heat showed everyone that they had not yet begun to tap their potential. Everything on this album had the mix distorting in some way, but whereas most people would clean that up, Lou Reed loved the sound of instruments that sounded like they were on the verge of exploding.
And since he had a song that was all about trying to expose the seediest sides of his sound, he made sure to turn ‘Sister Ray’ into an extended exercise rather than a song. There’s definitely a form to the track, but as soon as they get through what could be considered a verse, Reed and Sterling Morrison can get into what can only be described as a guitar duel, each of them making some of the most visceral noise possible while they play.
The song isn’t perfect, and the fact that Maureen Tucker stopped playing the song halfway through because she thought it was over is a little bit of a blemish, but it only serves to enhance the tune. This was the moment the studio became a warzone, and even if The Beatles had their fun, the rest of the underground music scene was paying a lot more attention after this.
From the biggest names in punk adapting the band’s unhinged style to people no longer being afraid to stretch out their songs to unheard-of lengths, The Velvet Underground took the basic skeleton of a song and created a whole new playing field for artists to work in than the traditional pop song formula. Most people had become used to the idea of a jam onstage, but this is when artists started using their raw soundscapes to tell a story.
