3. Nico – Chelsea Girl
It’s like she came from being the German Twiggy, and then went through to the concept record Desertshore, but this is the in-between stage. I think she was quite frustrated with Chelsea Girl. She wanted to be more vocal about the way it was produced, and there was loads of flute on it, and she didn’t want stuff like that. I really like flutes! It was written by members of Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan, and I think it was after she’d gone on tour with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. She came back and it was time to do a solo record, and it’s almost like you go through this very experimental thing with these amazing artists touring, and you come back and do this controlled pop record. I think it’s a really beautiful record, I’m not a massive fan of folk music, and this is quite a pop folk record, but I think it really suits her. I find Nico really inspiring, I get annoyed by the tragic life story taking over from the music, and the excellence of her voice. I think sexism had a lot to do with it. I can’t imagine that after going through the Velvet Underground and this open-minded creativity going on around her, to then be put into this early Marianne Faithfull type scenerio where you’ve got to release this record written by other people, and you’ve got to sing on it, and then we’re going to give it to someone else to produce, and then you’re going to love the way it comes back whether you like it or not, and she was really upset about it. I guess it epitomises her relationship with the Velvet Underground – she had such a big presence, but she had no control over how her presence was exploited, and that carried on in her solo career until she broke away with that. It’s probably what led to all these psychological problems, trying to portray herself as an ugly person rather than the natural, beautiful person that she actually was.
