Everything that needs to be said about this band has been said. The perfect marriage of joyful nihilism and the infinite drone, New York's twisted stars meaning every word that they sang. All of it is true, and while I particularly love the first two records (The Velvet Underground & Nico, and White Light/White Heat), there is a part of me that enjoys the personal yet obscure song cycle of the third record.What the gender is of the objects of Reed's observations isn't important. Man or woman, both seemed to house a mystery about love that he couldn't unravel. Love leaves you asking about where you are, and silently moves you to a place where you are alone wondering where you had been. Try rooting through a box of love letters and listen to this record in its entirety - you will get it.
After the hard as nails sonic assault of White Light/White Heat there was a wise move away from that sound. It has been assumed that due to Cale's dismissal from the band and the subsiquent theft of the band's distortion pedals was the cause. I'm not sure I buy that. Cale's first solo record "Vintage Violence" is in the same well crafted pop calmness of the third Velvet's record, only slightly more polished. Perhaps Reed saw that the band was in danger of becoming a parody of its self and he pulled in the reigns. Either way, what was produced had to be one of the more intelligent records of 1969. The lyrics would have been lost in the frenzy of the previous style of the first two records. Perhaps the only glimps of what was to come would be the song "I'll Be Your Mirror", and even then there is a menace to the words.
While their association to the underground waning from the firings of Warhol and Cale, The Velvet Underground were still capable of producing a track of sonic distress for the squares who might have been lulled into the record with its softer playing style. "The Murder Mystery" is the aural equivalent of Anthony Balach's The Cut Up's. Two audio tracks of word salads are recited simultaneously - each getting their own speaker. Read recites in a computer like monotone, while I suspect from the heavy Long Island accent Sterling Morrison reads at a rapid clip. The words intertwine around each other forming new images. Something about Nuns on the sea wall finishes the though of sailors who couldn't menstruate, but all the while nothing is really resolved. While this track seems out of place from all that has come before it, I have always wondered if it's placement was symbolic to the confusion on experiences ruminating over lost love.
Please click on the review title for the selected track: The Murder Mystery.
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