Dylan’s Shadow
On May 11, 1965, Lou Reed walked into a Baldwin post office on Long Island, New York, to mail a notarized sealed package. The recipient was Lewis Reed, a Freeport resident at 35 Oakfield Avenue. The envelope stayed sealed for over five decades. In 2013, after Reed’s passing, it sat forgotten on a shelf in his New York office, Sister Ray, alongside unsealed CDs. Interest didn’t spark until late 2017, when producer Don Fleming, chosen by Reed’s widow Laurie Anderson to organize the musician’s legacy, finally opened the envelope. Inside lay a five inch Scotch tape with the earliest known takes of some Velvet Underground songs that would become iconic.
The tape’s contents, remastered by engineer John Baldwin, now appear as a disc titled Words & music, May 1965. The project presents Lou Reed as the first reference in a broader effort to recover unreleased recordings. Reed is backed by Laurie Anderson and the Light in the Attic label. Future installments are expected to surpass this first release in sound quality and technical clarity, though they may be difficult to match in historical significance.
In May 1965, 23 year old Reed worked as a songwriter for Pickwick Records, describing himself as a poor version of Carole King. He had begun collaborating with Welsh musician John Cale, and together they were developing the seed of what would soon become The Velvet Underground. By these dates, or possibly on the 11th, depending on who is asked, the two recorded a dozen songs, including early versions of future classics such as Heroin, I’m Waiting for the Man, and Pale Blue Eyes.
The purpose of the recordings was mainly to protect Reed’s copyright, avoiding the lengthy process of formal registration. To that end, he notarized the package, making the shipping date clear, and the recording on the tape begins with Reed announcing, words and music by Lou Reed, before each track. The plan was to keep the envelope sealed unless litigation forced its opening, particularly due to Pickwick Records’ history of copyright disputes with its songwriters.
Dylan’s Shadow
Cale wrote What’s Welsh for Zen? with Victor Bockris. In his autobiography, Cale recalls how Reed first taught him songs like Heroin and I’m Waiting for the Man, presenting them as ballads. Words & music captures that approach in May 1965, its blues and acoustic folk sensibility echoing the Greenwich Village folk scene where Bob Dylan sharpened his craft. This contrasts sharply with the electric sound that would later define the Velvet Underground’s first two albums and cement the band’s place in rock history.
Laurie Anderson recently described listening to the tape as if it were a Folkways recording from the 1930s, noting the eerie, raspy voice that seems to come from a trailer. She asked, is heroin a ballad? People will be surprised by the answer. The work also offers a vivid portrait of a heroin addict’s world as reflected in Heroin, which Reed had released publicly in 1965. The Beatles’ Help! remains a touchstone for audacity and maturity in pop songwriting, much like I’m Waiting for the Man narrates the quest of a man seeking heroin in Harlem. Reports suggest Ira Moss, a Pickwick executive, resisted releasing the songs, arguing they were inappropriate for the label’s image.
Words & music includes Pale Blue Eyes in its prehistoric form, a track whose lyrics diverge from the version later heard on The Velvet Underground’s third album, released in 1969 after John Cale’s departure. The rest of the songs on the old five inch cassette are largely unknown, with the exception of Wrap Your Wraps in Dreams, sung by Cale and connected to Nico’s first solo LP, where Cale’s somber, minimalist touch begins to take shape. Anderson emphasizes that this era marks the moment when Reed and Cale started to evolve into the folk duo that would become The Velvet Underground.
Ballads and Rock and Roll
Among the tracks that emerged in public for the first time is Men of Good Fortune, a folk piece with such a traditional feel that Fleming turned to musicologists and historians, including Greil Marcus, for clarity on whether this is a reworking or a fresh version. Other notable entries include Buttercup, a quirky warning about the hazards of emotional entanglement set to parlor song styling, and Buzz Buzz Buzz, an early Chuck Berry influenced rock and roll number not identical to the 1957 rendition by The Hollywood Flames. The vintage vinyl release, along with eight tracks on eight track cartridges, gathers ten songs from May 1965. The new album is also available in compact disc or cassette formats with six previously unreleased tracks by a young Lou Reed. It includes Don’t Think Twice by Bob Dylan, a version of It’s All Right, and Gee Whiz, an old doo-wop piece Bob & Earl helped popularize, recorded by Reed in 1958 when he was sixteen.