Candy Says — The Velvet Undergroud
#365Songs: March 10th
The Velvet Underground. Always and forever the Velvet Underground.
The inevitable question that comes up when two or more music lovers converse with drinks in their hands: what’s your favorite band of all-time? And to be clear, that is a VERY different question from a desert-island album, which must be played on repeat until last breath — I would not bring any Velvet Underground album to that island, as the backdrop lacks the sexualized gritty urban energy that this music conjures and requires. In fact, a deserted island is just about the worst fucking place to listen to the VU.
But damn, yeah. The VU hits on all notes in terms of the band that lives underneath almost everything else I love, that driving energy, the darkness, the experimentation, the perfect sloppiness, the fucking atmosphere and the “we don’t give a shit about anything other than this moment” attitude. There’s never been another band like the VU, and there never will be. Don’t argue with me because I won’t have it. They broke what everyone else did and mainlined an avant-garde sound into music that still fuels bands fifty years later.
The VU humanized the trans experience in the late ’60s, captured the inner lives of sex workers, painted the euphoria and terror of hard drugs, poeticized about S&M, ranted about racial tensions, fueled and promoted experiential artists, reminded us that even the most down and out amongst us have stories to tell. Everything was a performance, and every last bit of it was art. Their catalog is angsty, melancholic, optimistic, and goddamn perfect.
It’s important to consider the VU juxtaposed to our modern moment: they broke barriers and shined a spotlight on alternative lifestyles that were decades away from mainstream representation. Lou Reed’s Lower East Side was a million miles away from the rest of American culture, songs you’d only hear on college radio stations or in your coolest friend’s basement. What a better moment to revisit this band: as queer culture faces a fresh wave of dangerous right-wing backlash, as basic transgender rights are repealed on a daily basis, as books on Other’ed experiences get banned across the country. Lou wrote more than one song about gender blur, identity and transition in the 1960’s. IN THE NINETEEN SIXTIES! He opened the stage for transgender artists, explored his own sexuality over the course of his career, and as Michael Stipe suggested, was “the first queer icon of the twenty-first century, 30 years before it began.”
Candy says, “I’ve come to hate my body
And all that it requires in this world”
Candy says, “I’d like to know completely
What others so discretely talk about”
“Candy Says” is about transgender actress and VU muse, Candy Darling, a song that digs deep into her gender dysphoria. Reed wrote, “Yeah, it’s about trying to see things from that point of view, but it’s also about something more profound and universal, a universal feeling I think all of us have at some point. We look in the mirror, and we don’t like what we see. I don’t know a person alive who doesn’t feel that way. That’s what the song is really about — and not only in looks but in what you require.”
“I’m gonna watch the blue birds fly
Over my shoulder
I’m gonna watch them pass me by
Maybe when I’m older, what do you think I’d see
If I could walk away from me?”
Candy says, “I hate the quiet places
That cause the smallest taste of what will be”
Candy says, “I hate the big decisions
That cause endless revisions in my mind”
“I’m gonna watch the blue birds fly
Over my shoulder
I’m gonna watch them pass me by
Maybe when I’m older, what do you think I’d see
If i could walk away from me?”
Candy made another appearance a few years later in Lou’s solo hit, Walk on the Wild Side. Over the course of his iconic career, Lou wrote several songs from the female perspective, one of many ways he seemingly explored his own gender expression, and experimented with his own queerness through relationships, on stage, and his lyrical exploration.
Don’t get me wrong, Lou also made a lot of shitty music. But he was unapologetically himself, never once abandoned his artistic whims, and served as beloved mentor to countless artists up until his death in 2013. His influence, both as a solo artist and through the VU, stands strong against anyone. So the next time some basic bitch tries to tell you that the Beatles are the biggest influence on modern rock music, send them my way. I’m always up for that chat.
