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Femme Fatale

The Velvet Underground were the pioneers of glam rock music. Their attitudes, their style, and their content inspired and directly influenced some of the biggest glam, rock, and pop artists. “The group's music and attitude shaped the work of David Bowie, the New York Dolls, Patti Smith, Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music, the Sex Pistols, R.E.M., Sonic Youth, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and literally thousands of other bands” (Carpenter).

 The Velvet Underground are considered the beginnings of glam not only for giving those artists ideas and building the foundation of meaningful and hard-hitting music, but the band themselves wrote about the three themes glam builds on; sex, drugs, and self. They unintentionally set the pace for these future glam themes on their debut album “The Velvet Underground & Nico” with songs like “Heroin” that “…provides insight into the narrator’s motives, a mini-movie about the nature of hard drugs and hard times” (Kot) and “Venus In Furs” that “drips with sex and oozes doom” (Williams).

The song “Femme Fatale,” “said to be a song inspired by Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick” (Williams), off the same album was written by Lou Reed and sang by the model Nico who was featured in only three songs on the album. The song has a hypnotizing and catchy beat; it sounds like a song you could hear a 50’s boyband singing while you’re sitting in a diner, sipping a milkshake. The lyrics only add to the boyband mentality with talking about admiring this “femme fatale” and watching how she walks and listening to how she talks.

 The song takes a slight turn when the lyrics “You’re put down in her book/ You’re number 37, have a look” and then with “Little boy, she’s from the street” (Reed). The theme of sex forms here because these lyrics can be suggesting that this “little boy” is watching a prostitute, hence “she’s from the street” and that he’s paying for sex or has paid for sex because he is written down in her book; he’s number 37.

 While the theme of sex is easily more blatant, the theme of drugs can be seen too. The glam movement had a thin layer of irony placed over their music and intentions. While the song does have the tempo of a pop song and the backing vocals make you think of the 50’s diner, the lyrics can suggest something else which most of the time, they did. Plenty of artists, most recently The Weeknd with his song “Can’t Feel My Face,” allude to drugs (his personally, cocaine) by using female pronouns.

 “Femme Fatale” has many similarities; the lyrics “Little boy, she’s from the street” can suggest that the drugs they’re speaking of were bought off the street, “She builds you up just to put you down” (Reed) can describe the feeling of getting high then losing the high after some time, and “She’s going to break your heart in two” (Reed) could be the narrator rationalizing with whom she’s talking to, telling the person who wants the drugs that they will probably kill you if you do them. Even the title of the song, which is defined as “a seductive woman who lures men into dangerous or compromising situations” can suggest the “femme” is a drug leading this character into the dangerous drug and its effects.

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The Velvet Underground

John Cale, a classically trained violist and theorist met Lou Reed, a classically trained pianist, in 1964 in New York City. These two men joined forces with guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Angus Maclise who then “formed a group that played under various names – the Warlocks, the Primitives, the Falling Spikes—in galleries and at poetry readings around lower Manhattan” (Carpenter). The one band they would form that would stand out the most would be The Velvet Underground.

 However, before their first gig as a band, Maclise quit and left, “claiming that accepting money for art was a sellout” (Unterberger). With Morrison reaching out to a friend’s sister, drummer Maureen (Moe) Tucker, the band was solidified when “she constructed her own drum kit out of tambourines and garbage can lids” (Carpenter). The band went on to play shows before stopping in Greenwich Village, New York where they met the artist Andy Warhol. “Warhol quickly assumed management of the group, incorporating them into his mixed-media/performance art ensemble, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable” (Unterberger). Warhol then introduced them to Nico, a model he had been working with, who then sang on the band’s debut album “The Velvet Underground & Nico” which was also produced by Warhol and was released 12 March 1967.

 While the band released two more albums, “White Light/White Heat” and “Loaded,” they never struck quite like their debut album did. “The Velvet Underground & Nico” did not sell many copies at its release; “With the Summer of Love in full swing and much of the world fawning over Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Are You Experienced?’ and the Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper…’, ‘The Velvet Underground and Nico’ barely made a commercial dent” (Williams). However, the album is praised for its inspiration, its realness, and its message that still can be heard today. Brian Eno, an English musician, said “the first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band.”

 The band lost original members over time; Reed left after the album “Loaded” and headed to England where he became a solo artist, Morrison went to teach English at the University of Texas after they toured the East Coast, and Tucker left and became a solo artist herself. The original members came together one last time in 1993 to tour Europe and release a live album before a falling out between Reed and Cale ended the reunion. The Velvet Underground were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

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The Velvet Underground perform at the Filmmakers Cinematheque, New York, New York, February 8, 1966.

Credit: Fred W. McDarrah

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Velvet Underground as they perform at Steve Paul’s nightclub, the Scene (West 46th Street), New York, January 7, 1967. Pictured are Lou Reed (1942 - 2013) and Sterling Morrison (1942 - 1995), and Welsh multi-instrumentalist John Cale on violin. (Photo by Fred W. McDarrah)

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Velvet Underground perform, with Edie Sedgwick and Gerard Malanga dancing, at NY Filmmakers’ Cinematheque, New York, February 1966. (Photo by Adam Ritchie)

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The Velvet Underground