Thursday, August 12, 2010

An Early (And Somewhat Narcissistic) Clue to the New Direction

From 1967, and the epochal The Velvet Underground and Nico album, please enjoy one of Lou Reed's best early songs, the quite lovely "I'll Be Your Mirror."


The Velvet Underground - I'll Be Your Mirror .mp3
Found at bee mp3 search engine
You know, I love that album AND that song, but I must admit -- with a degree of embarrassment, for sure -- that there are days when I hear Nico's atonal croaking and I want to use Harvey Korman's great line from Blazing Saddles -- "Shut up, you Teutonic twat."

In any case, as always, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize will be awarded the first reader to glean the clip's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Listomania.

25 comments:

Sal Nunziato said...

Sound-alke songs.

Temptations' "My Girl" & "Since I Lost My Baby."

steve simels said...

Hmm.

Nope.
:-)

Anonymous said...

songs with the word "reflection", such as by Marmalade.

Songs with the word "I"

Songs about German boudoirs.

AP

FD13NYC said...

Bands who made an infamous name for themselves with minimal talent? Or, bands who really look cool in their photos?

European models forced into singing? At least it's not later Marianne Faithful, eeesh!!

Anonymous said...

Groups with female vocalists. (If my wife wasn't in the room I'd write "a chick singer".)

ROTP(lumber)

steve simels said...

No to all, although the "I" one may have legs, as we say.

Anonymous said...

songs about ocular body parts?

songs about Roman numerals?

(these are all standard themes in power pop . . .)

AP

steve simels said...

No, and its too early for me to give the obvious clue.
:-)

TMink said...

Songs you covered.

This would be a VERY different list for me as the bands I was in tended toward the Southern Rock and Progressive flavors. Well, I was good enough at bass to play Southern Rock, but I can honestly say I was the weakest link in the prog cover bands.

Trey

TMink said...

Oh, and lest it seem I was posing, the bands I was in SUCKED! But we had fun.

Trey

steve simels said...

Trust me -- I've been in more (and more thoroughly) incompetent bands than you've had hot meals.
:-)

Anonymous said...

autobiographical songs?

for some reason, I sense at least one great song by the Who in the resulting list.

AP

Anonymous said...

Songs sung with accented English?

Singers who died during some form of locomotion?

Albums with mysterious producers?

Reassurance?

Songs with offers in the title?

steve simels said...

Okay -- here's a clue.

It has something specifically to do with the title of the song.

Anonymous said...

songs by, of, or about Edward Albee

AP

steve simels said...

I had no idea there were so many Albee related songs.
:-)

Faze said...

Greatest (mirrored) double-tracked vocals.

steve simels said...

Faze said...

Greatest (mirrored) double-tracked vocals.


Cool idea which I'll probably steal.

But no....
:-)

MBowen said...

Think of how much less shit there'd be in the rock'n'roll universe if there wasn't some blonde German skank whom both Reed and Cale wanted to fuck. It's embarrassing listening to them still praise her syphilitic junkie ass.

If you want to hear it by someone who has something vaguely approximating human feelings, find the Rainy Day version, which has Susannah Hoffs (I'm sure Nico would hate her, since SH is a Jew) giving a career-defining performance by not performing at all - just singing the song straight with all the dignity it needs.

Vis-a-vis the topic of the week: songs about mirrors/reflections/doubles?

Dave said...

Titles with some form of "to be" that we won't have to conjugate in a foreign language?

Songs titles with contractions?

Songs with "will" or "will not" in title?

Song titles with household objects?

geor3ge said...

Songs in the future tense?

Edward said...

Songs about being an object or something other than a person?

dSmith said...

Songs about Steve Simels?

steve simels said...

Heh.
:-)

Rinjo Njori! said...

Steve, did you get the tagline "early clue to the new direction" from the Helium Angel album or is there something obvious in "rock n roll" canon that I am missing.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/heliumangel-early/