How do you follow up a monster hit album like The Velvet Underground & Nico? Well, first, you need to wait for it to become a monster hit album. The Velvet Underground & Nico was not a success upon release. It sold extremely poorly, critics were mostly indifferent and the people who would go on to love it didn’t really love it at the time, my grandfather being one of those people. Of course, now, it’s considered one of the greatest albums of all time, as are pretty much all of the first 4 Velvet Underground albums, for different reasons. Loaded is remembered as their commercial yet still amazing album, their 1969 self-titled album is praised for its softer moments, and the fact that it was a departure from their first two albums. If the 1967 classic was rough, abrasive, loud and edgy, then White Light/White Heat took all those traits and turned it up to 11. White Light/White Heat is a 1968 rock album and the 2nd album by the Velvet Underground. This album has received praise for being a huge influence on genres like punk rock, no wave and noise rock. It may sound pretty similar to its predecessor, but a lot has changed. For starters, Andy Warhol is a thing of the past, and so is Nico. But some of the songs were written before they were gone, which makes sense, since songs like Here She Comes Now sound like they could’ve easily been sung by Nico. White Light/White Heat was even less successful than its predecessor, selling even fewer copies and critics this time were even harsher on it. It peaked at #199 on the Billboard Top LPs Chart. But time has been kind to this record, as it reached #272 on Rolling Stone’s 2020 edition of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. Despite this praise, though, it still divides some people. Some people call it pretentious, if you can believe them. I see why those people feel the way they do, I mean, for God’s sake, Sister Ray is 17 minutes long, but that does not stop me from absolutely loving this album. It has 6 songs on it, and they’re all super similar and super different at the same time. Allow me to talk about the tracks.
The album opens with the title track, which sounds to me like an already dark Christmas song gone wrong. At least to me. It’s a song about light, and at Christmas, a lot of people like to put up lights, both colored lights and white lights. And to me, this song sort of sounds like a messed up Christmas carol that kids with adult voices would sing to whoever opened the door to listen to them. But this song is very clearly about drugs. The term “white light” is referring to what you may see under the influence of an unnamed intravenous drug. The opening lyric is “White light, goin’, messin’ up my mind” and other lines in the first verse include “White light, it tickle me down to my toes”, “White light goin’ messin’ up my brain” and “White light, it’s gonna drive me insane”. And that’s just the first verse. The chorus includes the line “I surely do love watching that stuff shoot itself in”. Like, wow. This band was not normal. And the second chorus includes the classic “Watch that speed freak”. I know I keep talking about the lyrics, but I think the lyrics are some of the best things about this song. They complement the song perfectly. I love this song, which I just realized I haven’t flat out said yet. It’s amazing and a perfect way to start the album. The album continues with The Gift, which John Cale actually does the vocals on. Well, I guess he doesn’t sing, but he does provide us with a read aloud of a short story Lou Reed wrote for a project in college. John Cale giving us a read aloud of a dark-as-hell comedy written by Lou Reed in a sarcastic tone? Yeah, I’ll take this any day of the week. The story centers around a young, lovesick guy named Waldo Jeffers in a distressing lost-distance relationship with his college friend, Marsha. Waldo becomes increasingly paranoid over the course of two months after returning to his home town of Locust, Pennsylvania, worried that Marsha won’t stay faithful to him. He can’t pay to visit her in Wisconsin, so he devises a plan to mail himself to her in a large, cardboard box. He actually ships himself on Friday, and when he gets to Marsha’s house, her and her friend Sheila are struggling to get the box open, so Marsha gets a sheet metal cutter and gives it to Sheila. She stabs through the box and it goes right through the center of Waldo Jeffers’ head. What a masterpiece. My one tiny little complaint about this song is that sometimes John Cale’s voice can get occasionally buried in the mix, which is not something you want when John Cale is doing a read aloud. But mostly, it’s alright. In your left ear, you get treated to John Cale’s voice and your right ear gets treated to an instrumental Velvet Underground jam session. I remember once my headphones weren’t working and sound would only come out through the left side, and I tried listening to this song. It was pretty entertaining to hear only John Cale’s voice. I love the part where Sheila says “Oh god, it’s absolutely maudlin outside” and I love the way Cale says it. That’s not what maudlin means, Sheila, and it’s become a meme among my friend and I. The one friend of mine who likes this band. Great song. We just got a John Cale read aloud, so Lady Godiva’s Operation is a song where John Cale actually sings. And doesn’t he just have the coolest voice? This album so far has been about drugs and violence, so this song, in classic Lou Reed fashion, is about trans people. More specifically, it’s about a botched lobotomy on a trans woman. And it’s awesome. The guitar riff is badass, one of my favorites ever and there’s this part in the song where Lou Reed assaults you with the word “sweetly”. When I first heard this song, I didn’t know that was coming, and it didn’t scare me, but I wasn’t expecting it, and it startled me a little. This is one of their most underrated songs in my opinion. It’s darkly written, darkly funny and the subject matter is stuff you really won’t find anywhere else. Perfect Velvet Underground song, I love it a lot. Side 1 comes to a close with Here She Comes Now, which may be only 2 minutes long, but it’s one of their best songs, at least in my opinion. It’s definitely the most wholesome song on the album, and it’s still a double entendre. I think this was a song written before Nico left, and it shows, because I can picture her singing this song. To me, this song feels kind of like a mix of Femme Fatale and I’ll Be Your Mirror. It has the nice, wholesome sound of I’ll Be Your Mirror and it feels like it’s about something dark in the way Femme Fatale does to me. This might’ve been the first Velvet Underground song that I ever heard, except it wasn’t this version of the song, it was a demo version by Nirvana. So, I guess the first actual Velvet Underground song I ever heard is still Sunday Morning. This is one of my favorite songs ever, which I can say about every song on the album. Let’s just go over the album so far. The title track is about drugs, specifically about meth. The Gift is about paranoia, sex and eventually violence. Lady Godiva’s Operation is about a botched lobotomy on a trans woman. And in a way, the craziness is just getting started. Side 1 is certainly not calm before the storm, but it’s the less crazy part of the storm. Side 2 starts off on a bang with the awesome I Heard Her Call My Name, a song about a guy’s sexual attraction to a dead woman. This song is almost about necrophilia, but it also seems to be about schizophrenia. Sterling Morrison was mad at what was done to this song, and he even left the band for a few days. He thought that one of their best songs had been ruined in the studio, and I can see where he’s coming from. This song is loud, vulgar and raucous. And we still have Sister Ray to get through! The reason this song is so remembered is because of its ***ing insane guitar solo, which if I had to remember this song for one thing, yeah, I’d choose that solo. That solo gives me life, it’s just so loud and raucous and… it’s just great. This song is awesome. I’ve only talked about 5 songs on the album so far, and this is still the penultimate song on the album. That’s because the closer, Sister Ray, is 17 and a half minutes long. Sister Ray is basically everything great about this album. Drugs, sex, LBGTQ+ topics, vulgar, raucous, it is the defining track of the album. It’s really just… really great. I love the fact that this album has a really long closer that perfectly defines the album, but I usually don’t have time to listen to the whole song, which sucks, because I’d love to. Usually, I only listen for about 8 minutes. But the ending is really satisfying. My favorite lyrics from this epic include “I’m searching for my mainline”, “Oh, just like Sister Ray said”, “She’s busy sucking on my ding-dong” and the forever iconic “Whip it on me, Jim”. The goal of this song was basically to have every band member perform as loud as they could, and yeah, I think it succeeds because this song is absurdly loud. There’s this one point where John Cale comes in with the insane keyboard, which is probably my favorite part of the song. Well, besides the ending where Lou Reed gets out “Am-ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-ph-phetamines”. Really just a super satisfying song that is rough and raw. And that’s why it’s so beloved. I’ve heard it be called a great hangover cure, which I cannot confirm. But I bet it’s a great hangover cure, because it’s just really great in every way.
I thought I'd have more to say about this album, considering it's one of my absolute favorites, but there's not too much material on here, unlike on The Velvet Undergrond & Nico. Speaking of The Velvet Underground & Nico, what a weird album. Yet it’s still a more conventional and normal album than White Light/White Heat. But I think they’re both at an extremely similar level of quality. They’re both in my top 20 of all-time favorite albums, but The Velvet Underground & Nico is my preferred album. White Light/White Heat is an album that I really love and I hate to call it the Empire Strikes Back of their discography, because not only did my annoying friend call it that, but also because I think saying that is really cliche, but the first one is a classic, it was like an atomic bomb, it changed everything. And then the sequel, in this case an album, went even darker and many would even argue it’s better than the original. I think the original is better in both cases, while the follow-up is still one of the greatest movies/albums of all time. This is one of my all-time favorite albums, and unlike how you may need to rediscover The Velvet Underground & Nico, it’s just kind of hard to like this album ever because it is not too accessible. But there are people who really love this album, myself included. I've recommended this band to people before, and they said they didn't love their first album, but they listened to their second anyway. They gave up right away after listening to this one. It's disappointing that I don't have too many people to talk with about one of my favorite bands, but I guess that's why I'm here. So yeah, a really great album.
