"European Son" is a song written and performed by the American experimental rock band
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1964. The original line-up consisted of singer/guitarist Lou Reed, multi-instrumentalist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Angus MacLise. MacLise ...
. It appears as the final track on their 1967 debut album ''
The Velvet Underground & Nico
''The Velvet Underground & Nico'' is the debut album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground and German singer Nico, released in March 1967 through Verve Records. It was recorded in 1966 while the band were featured on Andy Warhol's Ex ...
''. It is also the album's longest track at more than seven and a half minutes.
The song could be seen as a precursor to the band's next album ''
White Light/White Heat
''White Light/White Heat'' is the second studio album by American rock band the Velvet Underground. Released on January 30, 1968, on Verve Records, it was the band's last studio recording with multi-instrumentalist and founding member John Cal ...
'' and to the song "
Sister Ray
"Sister Ray" is a song by the Velvet Underground that closes side two of their 1968 album ''White Light/White Heat''. The lyrics are by Lou Reed, with music composed by John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker and Reed.
The song concerns dr ...
", a seventeen-minute-long rock improvisation.
Composition
"European Son" is dedicated by the band to
Delmore Schwartz
Delmore Schwartz (December 8, 1913 – July 11, 1966) was an American poet and short story writer.
Early life
Schwartz was born in 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, where he also grew up. His parents, Harry and Rose, both Romanian Jews, separated when ...
, the poet who had been literary mentor of singer
Lou Reed at
Syracuse University. Wanting to dedicate a song to Schwartz, "European Son" was chosen because it had the fewest lyrics (rock-and-roll lyrics being something Schwartz abhorred).
The first pressing of ''The Velvet Underground & Nico'' referred to the song as "European Son (to Delmore Schwartz)".
The song was recorded in April 1966, and Schwartz died alone in Manhattan three months later on July 14. According to musicologist
Richard Witts, the song "reads like little more than a song of loathing" to Schwartz, who refused to see Reed while living out his last days in seclusion at a rundown midtown New York hotel. Witts highlighted obscure personal details in lyrics such as "You made your wallpapers green" and found the
Dylanesque "hey, hey, bye bye bye" lyric to bid "a malicious farewell to its subject".
Recording
The song begins with two stanzas of lyrics sung by
Lou Reed over a D major chord and walking bass line, then after the first minute or so a loud crash is heard (caused by
John Cale hitting a stack of plates with a metal chair).
There follows a six-minute instrumental improvisation, making use of
distortion
In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signa ...
and
feedback.
Personnel
*
Lou Reed –
vocals
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...
,
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
,
sound effects
*
John Cale –
bass,
sound effects
*
Sterling Morrison
Holmes Sterling Morrison Jr. (August 29, 1942 – August 30, 1995) was an American guitarist, best known as one of the founding members of the rock group the Velvet Underground, usually playing electric guitar, occasionally bass guitar, a ...
–
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
*
Maureen Tucker
Maureen Ann "Moe" Tucker (born August 26, 1944) is an American musician and singer-songwriter who was the drummer for the New York City-based rock band the Velvet Underground. After they disbanded in the early 1970s, she left the music industry ...
–
percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
Covers
*
Half Japanese
Half Japanese is an American art punk band formed by brothers Jad and David Fair around 1975, sometime after the family's relocation to Uniontown, Maryland. Their original instrumentation included a small drum set, which they took turns playi ...
on their 1984 album ''
Our Solar System''.
*
Thurston Moore
Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958) is an American musician best known as a member of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Mo ...
on the 1988 compilation album ''The End of Music as We Know It''.
*
Gary Lucas
Gary Lucas (born June 20, 1952) is an American guitarist/songwriter/composer who was a member of Captain Beefheart's band. He formed the band Gods and Monsters (band), Gods and Monsters in 1989.
Lucas has released more than 50 albums to date a ...
on his 2000 album ''Street of Lost Brothers''.
*
Iggy Pop and
Matt Sweeney
Matt Sweeney (born July 2, 1969) is an American musician and record producer best known as a guitarist of Skunk, Chavez, and supergroup Zwan.
Early life and education
Sweeney was born in New Jersey. His father was John D. Sweeney, a professo ...
on the 2021 compilation tribute album ''
I’ll Be Your Mirror''
Other information
The song inspired the German experimental rock band
Can. Its influence can especially be heard in the song "Father Cannot Yell", the lead track of Can's 1969 album ''
Monster Movie
A monster movie, monster film, creature feature or giant monster film is a film that focuses on one or more characters struggling to survive attacks by one or more antagonistic monsters, often abnormally large ones. The film may also fall under ...
'', in which
Holger Czukay plays a similar bassline.
A slowed-down version of the song's bassline (originally played by John Cale) appears on "Moby Octopad" by
Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo (YLT; Spanish for "I have her") is an American indie rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan (guitars, piano, vocals), Georgia Hubley (drums, piano, vocals), and James M ...
.
Simple Minds recorded a song entitled "European Son" on a demo tape, which was released on CD on ''The Early Years: 1977-1978''. The band
Japan also recorded a song with the title "European Son". Both these bands titled the song in tribute to the Velvet Underground song, and have covered other songs by the band (both covering "All Tomorrow's Parties", for one), but neither "European Son" is a cover of the Velvet Underground song.
References
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The Velvet Underground songs
Songs written by Lou Reed
Experimental rock songs
Songs written by John Cale
1966 songs