Nico – CHELSEA GIRL
Cooler people than
myself might prefer The Marble Index
and Desertshore, but for me it’s all
about Chelsea Girl. One of those
albums you buy in an unlikely record store and then treat as your greatest
musical treasure.
Chelsea Girl is the folk album that The Velvet Underground never
recorded. It’s one of my favourite Lou Reed-related stories, how he played the
acoustic version of “Venus In Furs” to John Cale back in 1965. And Cale just
couldn’t concentrate as it sounded too much like Joan Baez. With Chelsea Girl, you get some vague idea of
that sound. Only it’s a little brighter in places, what with Jackson Browne contributing
gorgeous tunes like “These Days” and “Somewhere There’s A Feather”.
The slightly disjointed “It
Was A Pleasure Then” may have seemed like a nasty splinter at first, but you
warm to it, later, as you discover more of Nico’s music. What I still don’t get
is why she hated the flute so much. The flute sounds intriguing, as do the
lyrics of “Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams”. As does everything else on the greatest
album of 1967.
