Unlike the psychedelic West Coast musicians who were singing of free love and romanticized hallucinogenic experimentation, Reed’s songs were concerned with the dirtier rituals and realities of addiction. Meeting the right people at the right time can transform good ideas into timeless classics. As much as these Words and Music demos tell us about Lou Reed’s development, they are also a testament to collaboration. No matter how good the songs may be, it feels like The Velvet Underground lost a bit of their edge with more “professional” drummers on the throne. Listen to 1970’s Loaded, the record that she missed recording due to maternity leave: You’ll hear very competent drumming in her absence, but that is the record’s greatest flaw. Tucker’s impact on The Velvet Underground can never be understated. The most obvious difference between this demo and the album version is the relentless on-the-beat percussive pulse from Sterling Morrison’s riffing, Cale’s thumping piano chug, and Mo Tucker’s drumming. The best demos show how other bandmates and collaborators can contribute and forever alter a song. This “Waiting for the Man” demo finds them at a threshold where they’re still embracing tradition, but are so close to the point of transforming the fairly playful folk tune about buying drugs into the iconic song that came to define the dangerous side of late-’60s New York. Haynes’ documentary implies that Reed was the songwriter looking to branch out, and Cale was the sonic architect who laid out the new runway for the songs to take off from. The collision of their sensibilities quickly transformed into songs like The Primitives’ “ The Ostrich” - with its strange six-strings-all-tuned-to-the-same-note tuning that the Velvets would later employ on “Venus In Furs” - that shows how once they began working together, they found something in each other that they may never have reached alone. In the center of the experimental art world of 1960s New York City, Cale began to push Reed into the avant-garde scene that he was immersed in. Hypotheticals aside, both “I’m Waiting For The Man” and “Heroin” show another side of Reed that confirms his gift for songwriting that was just waiting for a spark to become something entirely unique. In some other world, is there a folky Simon and Garfunkel-esque version of Reed and Cale? These recordings show that, while still an unlikely outcome, Reed’s solo acoustic chops were developed. Had he leapt wholeheartedly into the burgeoning folk scene of the day, perhaps he could have held his own among New York’s finest. After already having written many songs as a staff songwriter for Pickwick Records - where he was paid to compose in the style of whatever was popular at the moment - Reed could convincingly traverse genres. What’s most interesting about this set of songs is the various paths it suggests Reed (and Cale) could have taken. So many demos just show the core of a song and provide the blueprint for where it inevitably needs to go. In this primitive form it still holds its power, but the more innocent mood is entirely different from the later full band approach. This early folky version of “I’m Waiting For The Man,” which stood out in Todd Haynes’ The Velvet Underground documentary, features only Reed on vocals and guitar with John Cale singing harmony and throwing in a harmonica solo near the end. The set contains early demo tapes that Reed mailed to himself as a “poor man’s copyright” and never opened, including early versions of songs that became Velvet Underground classics. Light In the Attic Records recently released Words & Music, May 1965, the first treasure trove of recordings in the Lou Reed Archive series. “I’m Waiting For The Man” - Lou Reed Words & Music, May 1965 (2022) No matter what, each song is worth praising and one that merits further discussion. Some are brand new discoveries, others are long-ingrained favorites some will be completely unfamiliar, others completely inescapable. With stunning irregularity, our editor will add to an ongoing playlist of songs that lack any overlying theme. In a newly revamped format of the Certain Songs Project, Craig Wright examines a standout single song (or songs) in depth.
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