Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
I'm Waiting for the Man (1967)
Some artists are just ahead of their time that their significance isn't realized until after they're gone. This was the case with the Velvet Underground, who didn't sell many albums during their initial run between 1964 and 1973. Formed in New York City by Lou Reed (vocals/guitar), John Cale (multiple instruments), Sterling Morrison (guitar) and Angus MacLise (drums, who was quickly replaced by Moe Tucker), the Velvets combined avant-garde sounds with rock and created some of the most influential music in rock history.
In 1966, artist Andy Warhol became the band's manager and had them be the house band at his studio, The Factory, and suggested that German singer Nico join the group. Warhol raised the band's profile, using them as part of his multimedia roadshow Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The band's 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, found the group's minimalistic rock combined with Reed's explicit explorations of drug abuse, S&M, prostitution and sexual deviancy. Quite a departure from the bubblegum pop that was on the charts, which explains the low sales.
Still, that first VU album was a huge influence on many subgenres of rock, including punk, garage rock, krautrock, post-punk, noise rock, shoegaze, goth rock and indie rock. The album only sold about 30,000 copies in the first five years, but producer and musician Brian Eno famously joked that everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.
"I'm Waiting for the Man" is a chugging garage rocker about a man going to buy heroin in Harlem. Driven by grimy guitar and banging piano, the song features Reed describing the trip and the buy.
"I'm waiting for my man/Twenty-six dollars in my hand/Up to Lexington, 125/Feel sick and dirty, more dead than alive/I'm waiting for my man."
Along with "Heroin" later on the album, "I'm Waiting for My Man" was one of the first rock songs to directly address using drugs as opposed to hinting at it.
"Hey white boy, what you doin' uptown?/Hey white boy, you chasin' our women around?/Oh pardon me sir, it's the furthest from my mind/I'm just looking for a dear, dear friend of mine/I'm waiting for my man/Here he comes, he's all dressed in black/PR shoes and a big straw hat/He's never early, he's always late/First thing you learn is you always gotta wait/I'm waiting for my man."
Reed's deadpan delivery paints the picture of this as an everyday transaction, no big deal. He's an addict and he's got to get his fix.
"Up to a brownstone, up three flights of stairs/Everybody's pinned you, but nobody cares/He's got the works, gives you sweet taste/Ah then you gotta split because you got no time to waste/I'm waiting for my man/Baby don't you holler, darlin' don't you bawl and shout/I'm feeling good, you know I'm gonna work it out/I'm feeling good, I'm feeling so fine/Until tomorrow, but that's just some other time/I'm waiting for my man."
The song has been covered many times, including once before the original was released. In December 1966, David Bowie's manager got ahold of an acetate of the then-unreleased VU debut album and gave it to Bowie. After hearing "I'm Waiting for the Man," Bowie had his band learn it and they were playing it on stage within a week. At the time, Bowie didn't realize "the man" referred to a drug dealer and assumed it was about going to a male prostitute.
The Yardbirds, which at the time featured Jeff Beck on guitar and Jimmy Page on bass, also claimed to have learned the song in 1966 after playing a show with the Velvets and played it live. The song has also been covered by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Keith Richards, who did a version earlier this year for a Lou Reed tribute album. In 1998, I saw Cheap Trick play a cover of it, with bassist Tom Petersson singing lead.
Given the risqué subject matter, The Velvet Underground & Nico was almost immediately banned by various record stores and radio stations, and magazines refused to carry ads for it. The band's label, Verve, didn't do much in the way of promotion, either. It managed to peak at #171 on the Billboard 200. The cover of the album also featured a Warhol print of a banana sticker (early copies said "Peel slowly and see"), which the purchaser could peel to reveal a flesh-colored banana. Most reissues of the album don't include the sticker.
After the first album, the Velvets fired Warhol as their manager and Nico left as well. Their second album, White Light/White Heat, came out in January 1968. Reed and Cale weren't getting along during the making of the album; Cale played his last show with the band at the Boston Tea Party in September 1968 and was fired soon after. Doug Yule replaced Cale for the third album, The Velvet Underground, which was quieter than its predecessors. The band made one more album with Reed, 1970's Loaded, which featured well-known Reed songs "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll." After Reed and Morrison left the band, Yule took over as leader; the band's manager then fired Tucker. Yule ended up playing all the instruments on the final VU album, 1973's Squeeze, except drums, which were handled by Deep Purple's Ian Paice of all people. Yule put together a backing band for the tour and quit afterwards, ending the band.
Reed and Cale went on to successful solo careers before the original lineup (Reed, Cale, Morrison, Tucker) reunited in 1993 for a European tour. Plans were made for more dates, but Reed and Cale had another falling out. Morrison died in 1995 of non-Hodgkin lymphoma at age 53. The band was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and Reed, Tucker and Cale reformed to play one last song. Reed died in 2013 at age 71.
The Velvet Underground is now considered one of the most influential bands in rock history. Not too shabby for a group that was mainly known for freaking out the normies when it was first on the scene.
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