The Velvet Forum

"Sister Ray:" Some Pleasures of a Musical Text by Jeff Schwartz

Anyone read this? It's pretty interesting.

It's also printed in The Velvet Underground Companion: Four Decades of Commentary.

Pig Related wrote:Anyone read this? It's pretty interesting.

Yeah, I read the article when it still had the sheet music transcription GIFs. Interesting read indeed, but I'm always a bit skeptical when musicologists start ascribing psychological analyses to bits of music, especially group jams (which aren't the musical vision of one single person, so the picture is bound to get blurred).

I read it in the Companion book and while it was indeed well written and interesting, it was a tad silly...

arjan wrote:I'm always a bit skeptical when musicologists start ascribing psychological analyses to bits of music, especially group jams (which aren't the musical vision of one single person, so the picture is bound to get blurred)

What he said.

To be honest, I didn't understand that much from the technical analysis and such. I found the most interesting the part about Lou Reed. Although I did know he was given electro-shock treatments I didn't know it was because of his desire for men. And I also never noticed Lou says "Oh no man, I haven't got the time-time/Too busy sucking on a ding-dong" in Sister Ray. I guess the so-called 'heterosexualizing' worked.

Maybe I should try and find that autobiography. It sounds neat.