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Rating: 'White Light/White Heat' is dirty. It's hard. It's punk before punk, metal before metal, new wave before new wave. 'White Light/ White Heat' is drugs, dirt, disorder, confusion, oblivion. What more could a pure Rock listener want?
Without Nico and Warhol, in their original formation, the Velvet Underground finally had time to express in the best possible way their dark, experimental, crazy and perhaps a little bit rotten inside side.
And it is from this project that one of the most important albums for Rock as we understand it today was born. 'White Light/White Heat' is, if we want to make a comparison, the dirty and dark part of The Velvet Underground & Nico. From the title track, one can immediately grasp the project of Reed and his companions. Confused, distorted sound, feedback, sounds that seem to come directly from the electric outlet. However, the first track still contains the form of the traditional "song," Verse Chorus Verse, to be clear. It is with "The Gift," a superb free-form composition, accompanied by a tragic tale in pure underground style, that the Velvet begins to provoke, starting its crazy endeavor to definitively modify Rock. The sweet ballad "Lady Godiva's Operation," accompanied by a fantastic but almost imperceptible electric violin, is a hymn to prolixity, to repetition. What seem like guitars and drums are actually instruments for hypnosis overflowing with feedback. "Here She Comes Now" is a transition, the only song on the album to be truly pure melody, poetry. "I Heard Her Call My Name" follows the same zen concept as "Lady Godiva's Operation": hypnosis in a pre-punk key, this track refines and sharpens the concepts that in those years had come to form the "Hard" music.
But the revolution has just begun. "Sister Ray" is about to start. Written on a train after a terrible performance, "Sister Ray" is the most shocking track ever created by a musical group. Drugs, alcohol, sex, whores, blood, are encapsulated in 17 minutes of madness, 17 minutes of musical libido. A voice somehow trying to tell a story, screaming under that crazy guitar that does nothing but rave for the entire duration of the song. An orgy of noise where a drum beats the same constant rhythm throughout the track, never losing a second; a little organ improvises as the guitar's twin brother, generating a litany that lasts half the track, reaching its peak at minute 4:28. The rhythm then becomes increasingly bluesy, more relaxed, but maintaining that unmissable rhythm and tone. The end comes, after dozens of jolts and bounces, after those 17 minutes of anguished agony. Suddenly, like a heart attack, guitar, drums, organ stop playing.
After 'Velvet Underground & Nico' and 'White Light/White Heat', nothing will be the same in music, and after listening to them, everything in us will change.
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 Neu!_Cannas
This black record is that indelible black of anger and aggression from first to last groove.
'Sister Ray' is a single burning mass of lava that will never solidify, rewriting the musical path up to today.
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.
