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Lost in the Land (Jeff Purdue)
And she totally changed her image from being a blonde and wearing white to hennaing her hair and wearing black, and lived the dream. Everything that she did was part of a statement that now she was a different person. It was a solitary dream, where occasional friendships were struck, and abandoned . . . and the transitory nature of all of this was really kind of the flotsam, the furniture of her life for these somewhat derelict emotions . . . and it was so highly personal that it was very powerful.
--John Cale in Nico Icon
The story goes like this: the Velvet Underground, one of the most important groups in rock history, were forced by Andy Warhol to include in their early shows and on their first album Nico, a former fashion model and a regular at the Factory. Her function was essentially as window dressing; she was a tall, blond, beautiful woman who stood to the side and played tambourine. They let her sing on three songs in her toneless, breathy, deep voice. As soon as possible, they were rid of her and got on with the business of becoming legends, while Nico went on to obscurity, recording a few albums and becoming a junkie. She died while riding a bicycle in 1988.
Thats all I knew of Nico until recently, and I suspect that this is the case with many people. Some who read this will have heard her solo work, or might know a bit more about the events mentioned above, and will therefore know that the story as presented here is false in almost every particular. But in the fanboy world of rock and roll, such casual misogyny is not only common, its the price of admission.
Luckily for me, however, I saw not long ago Susanne Ofteringers superb documentary Nico Icon. I was introduced to a complicated person whose story is more than worth retelling. More importantly, I got to hear a sampling of Nicos solo music. I was simply unprepared for its power, its beauty, its darkness, and its tantalizing glimpses into the mind of a person whose life only ever raises more questions, no matter how many of its details one learns.
My purpose here, however, is not to delve into the details of Nicos life. For that, turn to Ofteringers documentary, or even better, Richard Witts Nico: the Life and Lies of an Icon. Instead, I would like to focus on Nicos music. Too much attention on the often sensational aspects of her life can lead one into a trap, a trap that Nico herself had great difficulty in escaping, the trap of being seen as an object. She is mostly famous, after all, for being a fashion model, an oddity, and as an actress in other peoples films. The last 20 or so years of Nicos life were largely spent in trying not only to be an artist (she succeeded at that), but also in being seen as one. Indeed, she was an artist with a remarkably consistent vision, discernible right from the beginning.
But even though my intention is to focus on her music, work and life never completely separate themselves, much to the consternation of whatever New Critics might still be around. Pop music, in particular, depends upon an imagined relation between the musician, the music, and the listener. And so, I find the following comments from Nico Icon highly interesting: Carlos de Maldonaldo-Bostock (charmingly described simply as a "bohemian"): "No one loved Nico and Nico loved no one . . . she was just alone . . . she couldnt bear for anyone to touch her . . . Nico had sex with no one"; Viva: "Nico had no inner life, or what inner life she did have was kept strictly inner . . . there was nothing to talk to Nico about because she had no interests"; Lutz Ulbrich: "Heroin does make you a colder and a meaner person . . . not so much Nico because she had always been different."
First of all, we need to take everything said above with a grain of salt. Each person has his or her own agenda, his or her own need to remember and interpret events as they do. Nevertheless, an odd portrait emerges. De Maldonado-Bostock (an occasionally insightful if somewhat suspect narrator) also says that "Nico spoke no language--not articulately, at least." And this does seem to be true. She seems to have been someone who had trouble connecting with people in any very direct way. This difficulty at times bordered on the sociopathic (particularly, of course, during the period of her heroin addiction). And yet many people, and many of these same people already quoted, found her charming and fun to be around. If she was someone who had difficulty expressing an inner life, if she was profoundly inarticulate, then it is odd that she also produced such powerful music. In fact, it may be partially because of these limitations that her art became so singular.
Nicos recording career is a story of unfulfilled promise. Maybe thats not true, but it is suggested by a look at the labels on which she released her albums, a record of lapsed contracts, broken deals, and accidents (and favors, always favors): Chelsea Girl on Verve (the same as the Velvet Underground), The Marble Index on Elektra (her friend, Danny Fields, worked for Elektra), Desertshore on Reprise (John Cale got a contract with them and got her a recording deal), The End on Island (the same story as Desertshore), Camera Obscura on Beggars Banquet (according to James Young, this recording contract was given on condition that Cale produce the album), Drama of Exile--well, frankly, I dont have the energy just now to get into the complicated story of that album. Despite Nicos inarticulateness, she could be pretty canny about the words in her songs and especially with titles. The Drama of Exile: this neatly summarizes a life spent "in other peoples rooms," as Richard Witts puts it.
Nicos first album as a solo artist is Chelsea Girl. It follows somewhat the pattern of what she had recorded to date (in that almost all of the music is written by others), but also represents a departure. For one thing, the accompaniment is more spare than was the case with her work with the Velvet Underground or on her single, consisting for the most part of guitar, flute, and strings. Nico has said that she hated that the flute part was added later by the producer. In this statement, it is possible to infer her later avoidance of the merely "pretty" and ornamental; imagining the songs without the flute brings them somewhat closer to her yet-to-be developed style.
Chelsea Girl is Nicos best-known solo work. Recent testament to this occurs in the film The Royal Tenenbaums, which features "These Days" and "The Fairest of the Seasons," two of the Jackson Browne-penned songs on the album. In general, the selection of songs works quite well; the album has a cohesive personality, and despite the fact that Nico had almost nothing to do with the songs, the personality conveyed seems to carry something of her own. For one thing, theres the voice, low, strong, haunting. There is a melancholy and serious quality as well, which would also be recognizable in subsequent recordings. Nicos preference for rather bare arrangements, with largely acoustic instruments, is also present here.
The only song credited to Nico on the album (actually credited to Nico, John Cale, and Lou Reed) is "It Was a Pleasure Then." It is, in many ways, the most unusual song on the album. The accompaniment consists of an electric guitar playing chords, both arpeggiated and banged-out. The guitar is somewhat fuzzed, and lapses every now and then into feedback. Cales electric viola, subjected to the same treatment as the guitar, will be familiar to anyone who knows the Velvet Undergrounds work. There are also various other kinds of noises in the background. This cut features what are surely the highest notes Nico ever sang, as she vocalizes into what must be the top of her register. What is perhaps most striking about the song is Nicos vocal style. She often stretches a single syllable into a long string of notes, a technique known as a melisma. This provides a direct bridge into the vocal style that Nico would employ on her subsequent albums
Even though she was treated as a non-musician by the Velvet Underground, Nicos recording career actually predates that of the groups. In 1965, through an association with Andrew Loog Oldham and Brian Jones (Nico always had a genius for knowing people who could help her achieve her aims) she recorded a single, "Im Not Sayin" (b/w "The Longest Mile"). Its bright and catchy folk-pop, and although she sings in a slightly higher register than she often used, the recording reveals some of the assets of her voice, in particular its focus and its power.
Indeed, Nicos voice is the most readily identifiable part of her sound. Even those who dont appreciate her qualities as a musician and composer acknowledge the unique nature of her singing voice. I remember the first time I heard her on the first Velvet Underground album, The Velvet Underground and Nico. Her voice is low with a somewhat intense quality, and the first reaction I had was a kind of queasy displacement: is this really a woman singing? Its definitely an androgynous voice, to match her androgynous name. I once put on her album Chelsea Girl for a couple of friends, and even though one friend had never heard it before, or any of her solo work, he knew who it was purely from the three songs she sings on The Velvet Underground and Nico. Its an instantly recognizable voice.
The three songs that Nico sings on The Velvet Underground and Nico ("Femme Fatale," "All Tomorrows Parties," and "Ill Be Your Mirror") are the principle markers of her fame. When you mention her, its always "Nico, you know, from the first Velvet Underground album." Further, people inevitably associate the songs with her, and her with the songs. In Nico Icon, Nicos aunt Helma Wolff listens to "Ill Be Your Mirror" and says "This is just like her--dreaming and boundless." My older brother, from whom I first learned about the Velvet Underground (and Nico), told me that the song "Femme Fatale" had been written for and about her, and so many people have thought over the years?. I think that we all do this with pop music; we assume that the person singing is doing so about him or herself. In Nicos case, it put into place an image that persisted throughout her life, mostly in contradiction to reality, and despite repeated protestations on her part. Consider these two quotes about her from the liner notes of The Velvet Underground and Nico: "And with the Velvets come [sic] the blonde, bland, beautiful Nico, another cooler Dietrich for another cooler generation"; "Nico, astonishing--the macabre face--so beautifully resembles a momento mori, the marvelous deathlike voice coming from the lovely blond head." These quotes emphasize her qualities as a mannequin, to use the French term. This is an association that Nico struggled to unburden herself from the rest of her life.
The Velvet Underground and Nico has entered the ranks of legendary albums. It almost always shows up on critics lists of the best albums of all time. Part of the reason is undoubtedly Nico. For one thing, probably the most-covered song on the album is "Femme Fatale." Her performance is often described as "deadpan," and so it is. She also conveys resignation, boredom, sadness, and just a hint of something more forceful. This last feature is inevitable, given how powerfully she tended to sing. On "All Tomorrows Parties," she is able to really belt it out (still in a deadpan way, though), while her performances on "Femme Fatale" and "Ill Be Your Mirror" are much more restrained. In all of these songs, the coolness of her voice contrasts well with the "hot" sound of the Velvet Underground. But upon hearing her solo work, you realize how constrained she is on these recordings, and how little they prepare the way for later work.