song of the week: the gift
I buy my lunch on the way into work each morning. At the start of the week I pick up salad, humous, maybe some swiss cheese, apples, crisps - all the good stuff, and then buy fresh bread each morning. It's much easier than making lunch the night before and less stressful than leaving my desk at lunch to fight with the other suits in Tescos. It also makes me look like an angelic goody two-shoes at work who's so dedicated that she couldn't possibly take a break from the office. Little do they know that the only reason I no longer go out for lunch is that I'm trying to break off my love affair with Lucky Strike and I don't wish to tempt myself with British American Tobacco by leaving the strictly non-smoking premises.Anyway, by the time I've walked to the Sainsbury's by Brixton tube to buy lunch, I am well and truly plugged into my i-pod. However, I think it's rude not to remove at least one headphone when paying, although two shows you care.
Anyway, my song of the week is The Gift by The Velvet Underground, a Lou Reed short story, read by John Cale and set against chugging, squeaking electric guitars. It tells of the tragic love of Waldo Jeffers for Marsha Bronson, and Waldo's very sticky, spraying, bloody end.
There are some beautiful details in Lou's story, including:
- The 'Awww' when Waldo realises that Marsha 'needed him, and he wasn't there'.
- Bill's post-coital words, remembered by Marsha the morning after the night before
- the dialogue between Sheila Klein (Marsha's 'very, very best friend') and Marsha
- the fact that Waldo both mows and etches the Edelson's lawn for a dollar fifty
- Sheila's fateful words to Marsha 'Here, you do it, I'm gonna die'.
The guitar part is beautifully menacing, unabashedly heavy, and perfectly imperfect, and ends so abruptly, and yet casually when the story's over that it leaves you before you've stopped gasping or giggling, depending on your temperament.
But, for me, it's all about John Cale's voice. I'm not especially sold on Welsh accents, but John Cale's little Valley lilt with a hint of East Coast drawl is, as they say, to die for.
fidelity
worry
pleated
America
daiquiri
icky
cuticle
nailed
breathe
through
morning
worry
pleated
America
daiquiri
icky
cuticle
nailed
breathe
through
morning
just words when said by anybody else, but said by John Cale, they're like chocolates.
And best of all, when Sheila Klein says 'Oh gawd, it's absolutely maudlin outside!' John Cale makes it sound like she's saying 'Oh gawd, it's absolutely modern outside!', which is a much better statement, especially when Marsha agrees that it makes her feel 'all icky!'.
So imagine my delight when, buying my lunch, I unplugged myself from my I-Pod, losing the chugging guitars for a moment, and was left with just John, telling me all about postal delivery services.
Yep, they split up the instrumental and the spoken word on the reissue. I swear my lunch tasted better that day.
posted by raspberry beret @ 7:09:00 PM
3 Comments:
Damn right. I first heard The Gift when I was about 13 or so. I had just seen a film of their reunion gig from 1993 on which The Gift is featured.
Lou was going through his Steven Siegal phase and played with a funny little guitar with no tuning pegs; Maureen pounded these tribal sounding drums and shyly came up front to sing I'm Sticking With You; Sterling was heroically Sterling; and John Cale appeared to me to be the coolest man on the planet.
The expressions he pulled depended entirely on the instrument he was playing. On viola, he would close his eyes, furrow his brow and be transported to some otherworldy place where Lou Reed is not a complete shit. On bass, he could pretty much pass for any old boy from the valleys playing in an avant garde rock band. On keyboards, he looked deranged, pounding them with his fists and staring studiously into the middle distance. My brother watched it with me. He was baffled. I had found my group.
He sang lead on most of the old Nico songs, and of course narrated The Gift. I can believe what you say about the vocal on its own, but the backing music is pretty amazing too. You barely notice it usually, so hypnotic is John's vocal, but when you concentrate it sounds a bit like Booker T and the MGs. Until about four minutes in, when Lou starts doing scratchy things with his guitar and it goes off into the cosmos.
Whenever I write short stories, The Gift is always there in the back of my mind. It is as good example of lean, experimental writing as I have read / heard.
Do you know the stuff he did for Island Records in the 70s - Guts, Pablo Picasso, Fear, Heartbreak Hotel etc?
aw, i'm so pleased that the two people that read my blog, aside from the person i live with, enjoyed this week's choice.
paddington - please stop asking me if i know stuff - i don't know anything.
alexandra - i can't believe your mother put the gift on a mixtape for you. please go tell her how brilliant she is right away
A lot of my musical tastes originated from my parents' record collection (it is said that I learnt to read via the lyric sheet of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours).
This might account for the wad of Genesis records that lie hidden in the darkest depths of my collection, and for the fact that Emerson Lake and Palmer's version of Jerusalem is still one of my favourite songs.
DV - I believe that you know 99.97% of everything that's in the world. And, having completed your 2-cd compilation tonight, the remaining 0.03% will be filled in while we watch the one-legged man with the slurry voice...
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