« Retrohump: Miami rain | Main | The Surrealists were just Nihilists with good imaginations »
February 07, 2007
Works in Progress: Footprints on the Moon's Face
Another Satellite of love released in '72
When I launched this feature, way back when, I had intended for it to become bi-weekly. It now appears bi-whenever the Hell we decide to trot it out-ly. It was a fast, sharp decline. Mssr. Swankster has been picking up the slack for the past two editions, but I figured I best do my part to resuscitate the old girl myself. There are still infinitive songs with multiple versions out there, after all. I may be a little rusty, so I went for a pair I've listened to regularly since college, as sort of a warm up.
the Velvet Underground - "Satellite of Love" (1970 demo)
Lou Reed - "Satellite of Love"
Leftover songs from the Velvet Underground era pop up in Lou Reed's solo work for a long time after that group's dissolution. It's almost like Reed would go into every studio session saying "I had some songs lying around. They just happened to be the best ever written." Songs like "Lisa Says" or "Ocean" or even "Oh, Jin", seem understandable as revisited also rans, but "Satellite of Love," which eventually popped up on Transformer, is so undeniably catchy that it gathering dust for two years after this 1970 studio take is somewhat shocking. Actually recorded as a bass-less three piece with Doug Yule and Sterling Morrison, this session appears to be the song's only immortalized version under the VU name. After a real awkward and sentimental prelude about the moon, the familiar song plays out in slightly rougher, more jangly fashion. It's not too edgy or avant garde, just easy tuneful rock that would have easily fit into the yet to come Loaded. Lou seems more blissed out and laconic in the later recording, and more excitable here. Also, the goofy middle bridge turns kind of bad with cartoon character names inserted.
Lou's sixties work was a clear influence on Bowie's glam persona, so it makes sense that a glittered up, DB produced Lou wouldn't be sound enormously different. The words and melody remain largely intact, and the other differences are pretty clear. Bowie adds the classic Hunky Dory piano, and Mick Ronson partially saves the "Winkin', Blinkin'," part with a waddling guitar (It is also partially saved by Lou switching to the less annoying names Harry, Mark, and John). There are additional female back-up singers, credited as the Thunder Thighs, so I'd guess the "bum-bum-bum" would be coming from them. The tones are warped and sexless though, and could just as believably be Bowie and Ronson. There's no mistaking Dave at the end. Those impressively acrobatic wails are too distinctive. Lou singled that bit out for praise when penning a blurb on Bowie for Rolling Stone's Top Whatever Artists of the Somethings;
"Most people could not sing some of his melodies. He can really go for a high note. Take "Satellite of Love," on my Transformer album: There's a part at the very end, where he goes all the way up. It's fabulous."
There's something about the Bowie/Reed team up that's more interesting than Bowie's similar production and guidance on Iggy Pop's the Idiot and Lust for Life. I love those records, but you get the sense that Iggy was just a force of nature waiting to be turned in a particular direction. It could be reading too many rock books, but I imagine Lou as being much more headstrong and sure of what he was doing, whether the public got it or not. So, I imagine it must have hurt a tiny bit for him to give his sound over to these Brits and have it work so well. His relative career stagnation before Transformer must have humbled him to the point that he was really willing to take alot of input on the way things should sound. He was never so open to true collaboration again and, in my humble opinion, it was all down hill from here (although the drop off was gradual for a few years before the final plunge into Raven valley).
Previously: Retrohump: (not) the Velvet Underground
// the Velvet Underground - Peel Slowly and See buy
// the Velvet Underground - Loaded: Fully Loaded Edition buy
// Lou Reed - Transformer buy
Posted by Jeff Klingman at February 7, 2007 06:05 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.merryswankster.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/670
Comments
Not to use this column as an excuse to compare Lou Reed with Bob Dylan and find Lou wanting, but the difference between Lou Reed and Bob Dylan has never been clearer (except, like, in pictures and stuff). When it comes to keeping Wynken, Blynken and Nod from sounding precious and silly, Lou is at a loss, but when the Mighty Zim wants to get fanciful in a similar vein, it's magic. To wit:
Sleepin' in the woods by a fire in the night/
Drinkin' white rum in a Portugal bar/
Them playin' leapfrog and hearin' about Snow White/
You in the marketplace in Savanna-la-Mar.
Posted by: skysby at February 9, 2007 01:02 PM
