•
Rating: After kicking out a German singer and an advertising professional of Polish origin from the group, the Velvet Underground enters the studio with a pissed-off mood and frazzled nerves. They crank up the amps to the max, volume melting, and start playing.
Who’s playing the bass? There’s no bass!
The sound engineers label the jam as supreme teenage garbage with frayed veins and neglect the entire production (some were getting it on with their girls on the mixer, others tending to their own business in the bathroom), and thanks to their negligence we now have this colossal ancestor (one of those with bristly fur and long tusks stuck in the ice) of lo-fi.
Primitive percussion serves as a grid for the sizzling viola, the puffing and clanking guitars, and the nervous and vibrant voice while the organ stretches out exhausted like a stream of acid over the boiling magma formed by the other instruments. The songs move from the amphetamine-driven (an adjective overused by reviewers trying to act cool, but here it should be taken literally) title track to the spoken word of "The Gift," where John Cale's voice recites a text of dark humor (a similar irony can be found in some story from Palahniuk's "Cavie") written by Lou Reed. "Lady Godiva’s Operation," recited by a Cale under an anesthesia-like state (Nick Drake must have taken note) talks about a sex change, and ends in an “anesthetic dizziness” with Reed coming out like a squawking parrot from Bahia seafront emphasizing his bandmate's words. The other two songs first serve to slow down, to change burnt-out amplifiers and to fiddle with the strings of the instruments ("Here She Comes Now") and then to pick up the pace again ("I Heard Her Call My Name"), and perhaps, to warn the listener. In essence, "I Heard Her Call My Name" should already indicate the group's potential danger, listen to the beginning, it reminds me of "Search and Destroy" (reminds me, because I heard the Stooges before the Velvet... you know, when you're a teenager at the start of the third millennium, to find good music, you go backwards, and then come back forward when you're ready for stuff like dEUS or Animal Collective, people you couldn’t appreciate knowing only their contemporary peers like Ligabue or Linkin Park)... if someone doesn’t sense it here, their danger I mean, then they have nothing left but to be engulfed by the fierce jaws of "Sister Ray." A song written on a train, which has the pace of a freight wagon on the tracks. The goods transported are speed, gays, and dead cops. I mean, they die along the way. Even here (here on the stain left on the carpet by a dead police officer) emerges a humor halfway between a Yiddish joke and theater of the absurd:
“Oh no, you shouldn’t have done it! Don’t you know you’ll stain the carpet?!?!?
…and..by the way, got a dollar?”
“Oh no, don’t got the time… I’m too busy sucking my own dick.”
And I'm too busy listening to this rascal to pay attention to the old lady asking me to give up my seat on the bus.. so, it’s seven in the morning, I also have make-up classes to attend, this uproar in my ears... and you, old lady, can’t you snag another seat or just stand, which is so good for varicose veins? Because I can't hear you... I'm under where the drone slows down... I slink quietly into a smoking amp...
I recommend this album to anyone wanting to have fun at the cost of scorching their ears, to those craving to hear some good swirling music, a sonic mush in which the instruments are inextricable from one another. Not recommended for those who feel obligated to listen to it only because it’s the “second album by the Velvet Underground.” From the first squawk to the last hiss: this is a journey, not a holiday assignment.
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.
Loading comments slowly
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 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.
