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Originally Posted by evollove
Did Velvet Underground write that song or was it a cover? What VU* album is it on? Or was it just a b-side to one of their singles?
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To quote Elvis in
Jailhouse Rock,
"Lady, I don't know what the hell you talkin' about!". Except I do, but I can't tell if you're being facetious or
what the hell indeed, so I'll just state the facts: it's a Reed original from
Coney Island Baby (whodathunk!). In one of those interviews-cum-bloodbaths between Lou and Lester Bangs, after
Metal Machine Music and before
Coney Island Baby came out, Reed said this about the latter:
Actually, I don't think the Harptones did "Glory Of Love", but they might as well have; the tune dates back to 1936. Lou may have been thinking of
The Five Keys' version, from 1951... Then again, I wouldn't want to second-guess the guy, since, like Laura Nyro, he knew his doo-wop shit — it was him who introduced me to the extraordinary
The Paragons Meet The Jesters album. And "Coney Island Baby" itself is named after the even older "Goodbye, My Coney Island Baby" song, which every barbershop quartet ever has sung (and if they haven't, they're mooks).
The Velvet Underground did NOT do covers. Well, almost. Apparently, in the early days, pre-Warhol, they performed Jimmy Reed's "Bright Lights, Big City" (no recordings exist). And they
kinda threw in some "Day Tripper" while rehearsing at The Factory in January 1966. References are a different thing: the most well-known is of course the "There She Goes Again" riff, lifted from Marvin Gaye's "Hitch Hike", but here's where I stop; I've run outta time already and I even missed the last subway train home. This is all your fault!