The Velvet Forum

I've been trying to get my hands on most of the book about the VU. One thing that I'm really curious about that I can't find anything written about is how much "Heroin", "I'm waiting for the man," etc. were written from real life experiences. I read somewhere that Lou hadn't tried Heroin until after he had written the first LP. This could have just been something he said to take away some of his mystique, but it would make the songs that much more amazing if he had written it from books, his imagination, watching people in NYC. Anyone know anything about this?

I suggest checking out the book Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties. I didn't read the whole thing, only the Velvets' parts, but there was a lot of info I didn't previously know in there. There is a quote from John Cale saying that Lou was the one to introduce him to heroin and that Lou actually was the one to shoot him up for his first time and that it was an intimate experience because he threw up on him afterwards. This all took place before the first album, so Lou most probably did do heroin before the first album. However, "Heroin" was supposedly written before the Velvets formed so technically Lou could have written the song before ever having done smack.

It's widely acknowledged that Reed wrote Heroin before he ever did the drug. But then Lou's an amazing songwriter so that's quite possible.

It's kinda like the way he wrote an album called Berlin when he had never been there before

I forgot that 'Heroin' was written probably back when he was 22 or so. It would make sense that he might not have actually done heroin then.

Also, I had no idea he had never been to Berlin. I figured since Bowie and Iggy Pop were cavorting around there, Lou had at least popped in.

texas wrote: Also, I had no idea he had never been to Berlin. I figured since Bowie and Iggy Pop were cavorting around there, Lou had at least popped in.

No he had never set foot there. He just used it as the setting/title of his album because it seemed like a dark and depressing metaphor for whatever he was trying to convey in that material. Maybe he felt he knew Berlin in a spiritual kind of sense through Nico, but that's just idle speculation on my part

from what i've read he based the song on william s burroughs and hubert selby jr books he'd read

According to Victor Bockris' Reed biography, Lou dabbled in heroin when he was back at college in the early '60s. Evenso, I suspect that as Stewart says, that song and Waiting For The Man were probably informed as much by others' writing on the subject as his own experiences.