John Cale
Mercenaries

It was Lou who ended up on the cover of Ciao 2001. It was Lou the songwriter. And ballads, since we're talking about ballads here, are a songwriter's affair.

Yet it wasn't just that neurotic half-sissy with a specialization in paranoia. That other, former child prodigy and damn egghead, wasn't kidding either. It's just that our information back then was different. And it said that it was Mr. Lou Reed who dumped tons of that bitter sensation into the Velvet crucible. The other, Cale, was just the one managing the fire's temperature. And so, the paranoia, so well represented by tracks like “I'll be your mirror” “Sunday Morning” “Venus in Furs” “All Tomorrow Parties”, we, quite mistakenly, associated only with Lou.

However, except for rare (and still fabulous) exceptions, the atmospheres, sinister yet alluring, typical of the first Velvet, aren't present in Lou’s albums. But in Cale's, they are. It's just that we never really listened to those albums. It was Bauhaus that set us on the right path by releasing a seven-inch containing a cover of “Rosegarden Funeral of Sores”, a track whose beauty forced us to look back. It was then we discovered that he, Cale, (just like the other and perhaps even more) possessed the special "creeping inside" stamp.

And we also discovered that, aside from the Velvet imprinting, he could render the ballad in a thousand different ways: psychedelic crackling, a sense of nostalgia, KO-like sweetness... Always with unparalleled refinement, devoid of the appearances that refinement often has, namely those of rigor mortis. It was then the ice fire of “Rosegarden” that made us understand.

“Rosegarden Funeral of Sores”, B-side of this marvelous 45, is a strange, very strange beast. And it's a ballad, of course... An almost wave-like ballad.

Imagine: an obsessive and almost menacing pace; the sharp blows of a tense rhythm, a voice, dark and deranged, with something of the more shamanic Morrison. And, delivering the final blow, terrifying organ blasts almost in a Suicide style. The result is goosebumps-inducing. The idea is that of something inevitable.

“The emotions -someone writes online- are listed with detachment, almost as if acknowledging them” And, still that someone, to describe the sensation of chill and cold that the track produces, says that “the organ traps the rhythm track, crystallizing over it like minerals on glass.” It couldn't be said better.

“Mercenaires (ready for war)” is, instead, a rather robust rock that continually builds rage and guitars, with Cale’s voice reaching an unruly scream. An incredible power rendering, once again, the horror or paranoia from which we started. The title, after all, is quite explanatory.

Trallallá...