The Velvets do not deal in abstractions but in states of mind. Their songs are about the feelings the vocabulary of religion was invented to described — profound and unspeakable feelings of despair, disgust, isolation, confusion, guilt, longing, relief, peace, clarity, freedom, love — and about the ways we (and they) habitually bury those feelings, deny them, sentimentalize them, mock them, inspect them from a safe, sophisticated distance in order to get along in the hostile, corrupt world. For the Velvets the roots of sin are in this ingrained resistance to facing our deepest, most painful, and more sacred emotions; the essence of grace is the comprehension that our sophistication is a sham, that our deepest, most painful, most sacred desire is to recover a childlike innocence we have never, in our heart of hearts, really lost. And the essence of love is sharing that redemptive truth: on the Velvets’ first album, which is dominated by images of decadence and death, suddenly, out of nowhere, comes Nico’s artless voice singing, ‘I’ll be your mirror / … The light on your door to show that you’re home / When you think the night has seen your mind / That inside you’re twisted and unkind / … Please put down your hands, ‘cause I see you.’
—
Ellen Willis, “The Velvet Underground” (from Out of the Vinyl Deeps)
If you are a “music critic” person then you were probably told a hundred times to get this and Simon Reynolds’ Retromania, but honestly, I’m enjoying the Willis collection a lot more; it’s also a lot more accessible to anyone who’s ever had the most passing interest in classic rock (so, a lot of people). I had a few more thoughts about stuff but it’s early and I haven’t fully woken up yet. (something something canon, something history, blah blah blah) Point being: buy this if you like reading smart, insightful, warm writing from a bygone era.
