SISTER RAY
“Sister Ray” is a song by The Velvet Underground that closes side two of their 1968 avant-garde rock album White Light/White Heat. The song’s lyrics were written by Lou Reed, with music composed by John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker, and Reed. The song concerns drug use, violence, homosexuality, and transvestism. At 17 minutes 29 seconds, it is the longest song on White Light/White Heat, taking up most of the second side of the record, as well as the longest song in the VU’s studio discography. (More from Wikipedia)
Perhaps the biggest surprise is that the Velvet Underground often creates beautiful and mellow songs, and one need go no further than the opening track on their first album to find it – the laid-back “Sunday Morning” is every bit as lovely as a song with that name should be, but it is coming from the same band that created harrowing tales like “Heroin” and “Sister Ray”. A compilation album called VU collected several similarly mellow songs that were intended for the Velvet Underground’s never-released fourth album.
(December 2013)
