Song of the Day 5/22: The Velvet Underground, “All Tomorrow’s Parties”

Andy Warhol, who launched the Velvet Underground by making them part of his Exploding Plastic Inevitable, called this first single from the band’s debut album his favorite VU song. Composer Lou Reed claimed it was about the scene at Warhol’s Factory, but the song was written before Warhol became their manager.

According to John Cale, “The song was about a girl called Darryl, a beautiful petite blonde with three kids, two of whom were taken away from her. Me and Lou were both trying to win her affections.” And in its initial form on a 1965 demo tape, it sounded nothing like the “mesmerizing gothic-rock masterpiece” Kurt Loder described. It sounded like three guys at a hootenanny.

One aspect that made “The Velvet Underground & Nico” the first art-rock album was Reed and Cale’s shared fascination with musical drones. Cale played a piano with the strings draped with paper clips and Reed tuned all his guitar’s strings to D.

Nico became ineradicably connected to the song, and it remained a highlight of her live performances in the ’80s, when the ravages of her heroin addiction added to its poignancy. This a cappella performance comes from a 1980 concert at Manchester’s Library Theatre.