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Rating: Take your black copy of this black record and put it in your player. It doesn't matter if for the first time or the tenth in the same day. Take the cover, look at it closely. What do you see? Black. It's all black. But not that dirty black that gradually goes away with rubbing. This is that indelible black. That black of anger, of aggression that runs from the first to the last groove of the circular object.
Hell, we're talking about White Light/White Heat, go take a shower or freshen up for the occasion. Actually, no, stay filthy and dirty just as you are now, maybe it's better that way.
We are talking about the most beautiful musical work of the '90s without half measures, without shame and without presumption from my side.
Don't agree? Then insert your copy into your stereo, CD player or whatever, with a delicacy that not even a 500-year-old Ming dish deserves.
The wait is really short, actually none, and here the title-track, fast and rocking, welcomes the listener who might have been expecting another album with the banana on the cover and with the angelic Nico singing love songs.
Get it in your head now. Here there's no Andy getting in the way of Cale and Reed.
Here the two rise four spans above other men, and at the same time lower themselves by eight, reaching the heart of the New York underground.
Finished.
Oh, the second isn't a more or less normal song like the first one just heard, oh no.
It's called "The Gift" and it's a poem written during school days by Reed himself, apocalyptically recited by Cale on one audio channel, while on the other runs a scratching and dirty music. Here's the story of Wado Jeffers and his beloved advancing on this rough carpet of guitar notes and noises that make the listener even more involved.
Finished.
For the third track, we have "Lady Godiva's Operation". Magnificent. Wonderful. One of Reed's most inspired lyrics, always sung by Cale himself, but towards the end, here's Reed marking the end of the verses with his voice, alternating in singing, all covered by a guitar riff as anguished as the waiting for the surgical operation and as bad and sad as the failure of the operation itself and the death of the protagonist.
Finished.
Don't be overwhelmed. The fourth track is a song sung by Reed, lasting 2 little minutes from the first LP. "Here She Comes Now". A bit of a truce for our ears, or simply the calm before the storm that will soon rage among your neurons.
Finished.
"I Heard Her Call My Name" is the fifth and penultimate track. I heard her call my name. A bit unlikely since in the four and a half minutes of the song, the noise reaches peaks never achieved by music. Aggressiveness only brushed by punk. Seven years before it.
Finished.
I'm listening to it, and I don't know if I can be 100% lucid, but I will try.
Here are Reed's memories of recording Sister Ray:
"When we recorded the song, we put the volume at ten, with the sound blasting everywhere.
They asked us what we would do. And we: We are about to start.
They asked: who plays the bass? And we: There will be no bass.
They asked when it would end. And we: I don't know. It will end when it ends."
It's 17 and a half minutes.
It's the apotheosis of Rock and related genres.
Forget the riffs of the Rolling Stones or the Rock 'n' Roll era. Here is a single burning mass of lava that will never solidify. Here there is Punk, here there is heavy metal, here there is hard rock, here there is all '90s rock music, here are the experiments from the school of Stockhausen or La Monte Young, here is the past, present, and future of Rock.
The instruments are not distinguishable, not identifiable but wrapped in the dense and thick fog of distortion (maybe this is where Reed started to think of Metal Machine), not at all harmless but sharp, massacring, distressing. The text then repeated obsessively and ever more intensely by Reed (who must almost scream to overcome the wall of noise) tells of an orgy where a sailor ends up dead, but all the guests seem to care only about the bloodstained carpet. But the only orgy here seems to happen among Tucker's drums, Reed's guitar, and Cale's organ that merge into a single block that is thrown at you for the entire duration of the song (or as long as you can endure) and you remain enchanted, almost happy in your masochistic pleasure seeing your sense of hearing, and the entire nervous system, violated and left there like they do with the poor sailor mistakenly deceased. This is truly the culmination of that search in experimentation that had as its main stages the last two tracks of The Velvet Underground & Nico or the track preceding this one.
This is also the highest, but at the same time low and dirty, point of contemporary music, and nothing after Sister Ray has remained the same.
Less than 20 minutes to rewrite the musical path up to today.
Two albums to become a Legend.
Infinite.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 White Light/White Heat (02:47)
White light, go on messing up my mind
Don't you know it's gonna make me go blind?
White heat, it tickles me down to my toes
Have mercy, white light, have it, goodness knows
White light, go on messing up my brain
White light, it's gonna drive me insane
White heat, it tickles me down to my toes
White light I said now, goodness knows, do it
I surely do love to watch that stuff shooting itself in
Watch that side, watch that side, don't you know, gonna be dead and bright
Yeah, foxy mama, watch her walking down the street
Come upside, your head's gonna make a dead end on your street
White light, move in me and drain my brain
White light gonna make you go insane
White heat, it tickles me down to my toes
White light, I said now, goodness knows
White light is lighting up my eyes
Don't you know it fills me up with surprise?
White heat, tickle me down to my toes
White light, I tell you now, goodness knows
Oh, she surely do move, speed
Watch that speed freak, watch that speed freak,
everybody gonna make it every week
Sputter mutter, everbody's gonna kill their mother
Here she comes, here she comes, everybody get it, gonna make me run, do it
Higher
03 Lady Godiva's Operation (04:56)
Lady Godiva, dressed so demurely,
Pats the head of another curly-haired boy,
Just another toy.
Sick with silence, she weeps sincerely,
Saying words that have oh so clearly been said
So long ago.
Draperies wrapped gently around her shoulder,
Life has made her that much bolder now
That she [has] found out how.
Dressed in silk, latin lace and envy,
Pride and joy of the latest penny-fare,
Pretty passing care.
Hair today now dipped in the water,
Making love to every poor daughter's son,
Isn't it fun?
Now today, propping grace with envy,
Lady Godiva peers to see if anyone's there
And hasn't a care.
"Doctor is coming," the nurse thinks SWEETLY,
Turning on the machines that NEATLY PUMP AIR.
The body lies bare.
Shaved and hairless, what once was SCREAMING,
Now lies silent and ALMOST SLEEPING.
The rain must have gone away.
STRAPPED SECURELY TO THE WHITE TABLE,
ETHER CAUSES THE BODY TO WITHER AND WRITHE,
Underneath the white light.
THE DOCTOR ARRIVES WITH A KNIFE AND BAGGAGE
SEES THE GROWTH, JUST SO MUCH CABBAGE
That must now be cut away.
NOW COMES THE MOMENT OF GREAT, GREAT DECISION.
THE DOCTOR IS MAKING HIS FIRST INCISION.
One goes here,
AND ONE GOES THERE.
"The ether tube's leaking," says someone who's sloppy.
THE PATIENT, IT SEEMS, IS NOT SO WELL SLEEPING.
The screams echo off the walls.
Don't panic -- someone give him pentathol instantly.
The doctor removes his blade cagily slow from the brain.
BY MY COUNT OF TEN.
THE HEAD WON'T MOVE!
[N.B. Normal text is sung by John Cale; UPPER-CASE TEXT
IS SUNG/SPOKEN/SHOUTED BY LOU REED.]
05 I Heard Her Call My Name (04:38)
Here she comes now, now
Gone, gone, gone
Ready, ready, ready, ready, ready
Got my eyes wide open
Ever since I was on cripples Monday
Got my eyeballs on my knees, Aww my baby walkin'
After hours with Mad Mary Williams
Said she never understood a word from me, because...
I know that she cares about me
I heard her call my name
And I know that she's long dead and gone
Still she ain't the same
When I wake up in the morning
I heard her call my name
I know that she's gone, gone, gone
I heard her call my name
And then my mind split open...
06 Sister Ray (17:27)
Doug and Sally inside
They're busy cooking for the down five
Who're staring at Miss Rayon
Who's busy licking up her big man
I'm searching for my mainline
I said I couldn't hit it sideways
I said I couldn't hit it sideways
Ah, it's just like Sister Ray said
Rosy and Miss Rayon
They're busy waiting for her booster
Who just got back from Carolina
She said she didn't like the weather
They're busy waiting for her Sailor
Who said he's just as big as ever
He's just here from Alabama
He wants to know a way to earn a dollar
I'm searching for my mainline
I couldn't hit it sideways
Ah, just like Sister Ray said
Cecil's got his new piece
He cocks and shoots between three and four
He aims it at the Sailor
Shoots him down dead on the floor
Oh, you shouldn't do that
Don't you know you'll stain the carpet
Don't you know you'll stain the carpet
And by the way man, have you got a dollar
Oh no man, I haven't got the time time
Too busy sucking on a ding dong
She's busy sucking on my ding dong
Oh, she does it just like Sister Ray said
I'm searching for my mainline
I said I couldn't hit it sideways
I couldn't hit it sideways
Oh, just like, just like Sister Ray said
Now, who's that knocking
Who's that knocking on my chamber door
Now could it be the police
They've come to take me for a ride ride
Oh, but I haven't got the time time
Too busy sucking on my ding dong
She's busy sucking on my ding dong
Oh, now, just like Sister Ray said
I'm searching for my mainline
I couldn't hit it sideways
I couldn't hit it sideways
Oh now, just like, just like, just like.....
Sister Ray says.
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Other reviews
By easycure
Never has a band had such enormous influence and never has a band been so unique, essential, outside any genre yet incredibly important.
'Sister Ray'... is the pinnacle of the album and perhaps the entire career of the VU: 17 minutes of hypnotic ride, with a shamanic crescendo and a climax of noise.
By Antonino91
The sound quality of the album is terrible... but this gives the album a special character that distinguishes it from any other album.
'Sister Ray' is truly devastating, aggressive, raw, beautiful, and spiced with a funny text... an absolute masterpiece.
By joe strummer
The descent into the inferno of The Velvet Underground continues in the second work of the group, this time without Nico nor Warhol.
"Sister Ray"... encapsulates an entire philosophy of life and, more generally, a state of mind.
By Fast&Bulbous
'White Light/White Heat' is dirty. It’s hard. It’s punk before punk, metal before metal, new wave before new wave.
'Sister Ray' is the most shocking track ever created by a musical group... 17 minutes of madness, 17 minutes of musical libido.
By Luca Ventura
Thanks to their negligence we now have this colossal ancestor of lo-fi.
I recommend this album to anyone wanting to have fun at the cost of scorching their ears.
