The Velvet Underground - Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams - Non-Album Tracks (1964-1967)

Here's the first of stray tracks collections for the Velvet Underground (VU).

I'm starting this with some songs from Lou Reed before the VU even formed. Reed started his musical career by working as a professional songwriter in the "Brill Building" factory assembly line style. Most of these songs weren't good, and most of them were sung by others. But even now and then, he'd come up with something that almost could have passed for a future VU song.

The first and foremost example of this is "The Ostrich." This is a great place to start, because it's where the VU begin. That song was a minor hit, the only one from Reed's time hired as a songwriter. The record company wanted Reed to tour to support the song, and he met and began working with John Cale when bringing that band together. The rest is history. "You're Driving Me Insane" and "Cycle Annie" are the other Reed songs from this early era.

I follow that with two songs from Nico, "I'm Not Sayin'" and "The Last Mile." I generally consider Nico's music career separate from the VU's, since she went in a different direction after her brief time as part of the band. But I have a few exceptions, such as these songs. They're the A- and B-sides of her only official release before she joined the VU.

The rest of the songs on this album actually are performed by the VU, during the time Nico was a member. Of course, "There She Goes Again" was on VU's classic first album, but this version has Nico singing lead vocals instead of Reed, and that's such a big difference that I figured it merited inclusion here.

The last two songs come from Nico's 1967 album "Chelsea Girl." Five of the songs from that album were performed by Nico backed by all the members of the VU, and they were written by Cale and/or Reed as well. So those five songs have made it on some VU collections, with good reason. I've included three here. I would have put all five on, but I want this album to have a reasonable length, so the other two will go on the next VU stray tracks album I post here.

I have "I'll It with Mine" as a bonus track. Nico did this song for her "Chelsea Girls" album. But this actually is a live version performed by Nico with the VU. The problem is, Nico's vocals were almost inaudible on the audience bootleg recording. So I took her vocal from her album and added them in, creating a mash-up of sorts. I posted that single song here a while back, and the reaction was mixed, so I'm only including it as a bonus track as a result. But I feel pretty strongly that the issue people have isn't with my mash-up, but with the way the VU played the song in concert. They didn't do it the normal way Nico did it, Dylan did it, and everyone else who covered the song did it. Instead, they added a totally different rock and roll rhythm that doesn't fit the song well. But it is interesting, so I figure it's worthy to have at least as a bonus track.

01 The Ostrich (Lou Reed & the Primitives)
02 You're Driving Me Insane (Lou Reed & the Roughnecks)
03 Cycle Annie (Lou Reed & the Beachnuts)
04 I'm Not Sayin' (Nico)
05 The Last Mile (Nico)
06 Miss Joanie Lee [Edit] (Velvet Underground)
08 There She Goes Again [Nico Vocals] (Velvet Underground)
09 Melody Laughter [Edit] (Velvet Underground)
10 Little Sister (Nico & the Velvet Underground)
11 Winter Song (Nico & the Velvet Underground)
12 Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (Nico & the Velvet Underground)

I'll Keep It with Mine [Edit] (Velvet Underground)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/sJHwjL92

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/EOhiQ3JLw0tNkck/file

The cover art photo is a publicity photo of Nico and the VU around 1966 or 1967. The VU were named after a book by Michael Leigh of the same title. I used the text from that book cover for that band name up top.

Velvet Underground - I'll Keep It with Mine (1966) (MASH-UP)

Here's something that's pretty weird, and I'm curious if anyone has feedback on it.

Today, I was going to post a Velvet Underground (VU) stray tracks album, but first I went poking around the Internet to see if I'd missed anything. I came across a 1966 live recording of the VU doing the Bob Dylan song "I'll Keep It with Mine," with vocals by Nico. This really surprised me. I knew Nico recorded that song on her first solo album, 1967's "Chelsea Girls." But while about half of the songs from that album had backing by most of the VU, that song was not one of them.

So this would have been a really nice find, except that while the bootleg recording had decent sound, Nico's vocals were so low in the mix as to be nearly inaudible. No doubt that's why it hasn't appeared on any of the VU's archival releases, because hearing faint vocals is much worse than no vocals at all. But then I had a crazy idea: what if I took Nico's vocals from her performance of that song on "Chelsea Girls" and add them to the recording?

There was a big problem with this, in that VU performed the song totally differently. On the "Chelsea Girls" album, Nico does a folky version of the song, with strings and flutes as pretty much the only musical backing. But the live VU version, while lacking drums, has a slow but driving rock and roll rhythmic guitar backing. It's a really unusual version of the song in general, and some of the chord structure had to be changed to get the rhythmic pattern to work. Plus, there were differences in pitch and tempo. It turned out the two versions were in totally different keys,and I had to try to sync them up. I also had to try to isolate just the vocals from the "Chelsea Girls" version, and I'm very inexperienced in doing that.

But I gave it a go anyway just as an experiment, and much to my surprise, it kind of works! Since Nico's vocals can be faintly heard on the VU version, one can tell that it turns out she sings the song nearly exactly the same way in both versions, despite the totally different backing.

I made a lot of changes to tempo and pitch and so on, and the final result is far from perfect. Sometimes, some of the strings from the "Chelsea Girls" version can be heard, and sometimes the faint Nico vocals from the VU version can be heard, and sometimes the timing of the vocals doesn't quite match up with the musical backing. But, all in all, I'm pretty happy at how this turned out, given that it was a Hail Mary that it would even come close to working. Hopefully, this is close to how the song actually would have sounded if one had been there in person.

Like I said, I'd be really curious to see what other people think. Is this a travesty or kind of a long-lost VU and Nico song? And I just made a rough guesstimate to match the keys from the two versions - does that sound okay? I can change it if you think it's a bit flat or sharp.

I must admit that I have next to no knowledge in how to properly do this sort of thing - I'm just winging it. Perhaps someone with real musical editing skills can take the two original versions and mash them up in a better way. I'd love to hear an improvement.

I have included this edit as a bonus track for a Velvet Underground stray tracks album. You can find that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-velvet-underground-wrap-your.html