So I was lying in the bath just now listening to Velvet Underground’s eponymous second album when “Some Kind of Love” comes on. And I am struck, not for the first time, by the fantastic, playful, hilarious, and generous lyrics.
The title alone is telling and, again, generous: some kinds of love. Not this kind of love. Not love as pain, love as longing, love as union — just different kinds of love and each has its place:
Some kinda love
Margarita told Tom
between thought and expression lies a lifetime
situations arise because of the weather
and no kinds of love
are better than others
Love emerges from the weather, in the faltering between feeling and word. And this love can take any number of forms, from the silly to the profound:
Some kinds of love
Margarita told Tom
like a dirty French novel
combines the absurd with the vulgar
and some kinds of love
the possibilities are endless
and for me to miss one
would seem to be groundless
…and some kinds of love
are mistaken for visionary
This ambivalence does not heed indecision or reflection without action. On the contrary, for Lou Reed it inspires play and frolic:
Put jelly on your shoulder
let us do what you fear most
that from which you recoil
but which still makes your eyes moist
And it ends with an embrace of the ambivalence, the multivalence of love — and this, I would say, is joy, an affirmation of it all, a diving in even though he knows — knows — there will be pain and tears but also pleasure and delight: there will be life:
I don’t know just what it’s all about
but put on your red pajamas and find out
This is the greatest love song I know precisely because it embraces all the different modes of love, the different kinds of love. Because it loves without demanding univocality, loves without cliche, loves without bathos but with pathos, loves nonetheless, loves with feeling, loves with humor, loves with passion.
And isn’t that what love is all about?
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And of course you're a bore But at that you're not charmless
JT1
so many better songs on futuresex/love sounds, i'm serious.
http://twitter.com/JosephErnest Joseph Ernest Harper
Confused by the word “second” in yr first sentence. Controversial.
texas roadhouse
this is like that paul f tompkins thing where he gets way too high at a party and says all the same shit about an anne murray song
lando
maybe considering the debut w/ Nico to be an entirely different band, making the follow up to White Light/ White Heat their 2nd. In any event this is the weakest of TVU albums IMO.
DiTrapano
LOVE
http://twitter.com/JosephErnest Joseph Ernest Harper
Mate. Pale Blue Eyes is a pretty good track.
Kinda weird to discount the +Nico album though isn't it? Would be interested in the author's rationale.
Do you belong to a Facebook group called, “North Kennedy High Promz 2012, so we don’t all wear the same dress, OMG”? Have you recently been made aware by Katy Perry, or someone who sounds a lot like Katy Perry, that you are, in fact, a firework?
You need to drive a convertible with the top down. Call up your friend on a summer day and be like, “Yo, I rented a convertible so we could drive it around and feel like we’re in a movie montage. Come outside!”
If Bigfoot is real, then what else is out there in the world — beyond the accepted walls of your city’s Museum of Science? What else are we wrong about? It would cause a re-examination of just about everything. It’d be fantastic.
Laura lives and writes in NYC.
Ryan O’Connell is a 25 year-old writer based in the East Village, New York.
Johanna de Silentio is philolzophy.com.
Gaby Dunn is a writer, journalist and comedian in New York City.
Emphatic Ambivalence: Velvet Underground’s Greatest Love Song
By Daniel Coffeen
Read more »
So I was lying in the bath just now listening to Velvet Underground’s eponymous second album when “Some Kind of Love” comes on. And I am struck, not for the first time, by the fantastic, playful, hilarious, and generous lyrics.
The title alone is telling and, again, generous: some kinds of love. Not this kind of love. Not love as pain, love as longing, love as union — just different kinds of love and each has its place:
Love emerges from the weather, in the faltering between feeling and word. And this love can take any number of forms, from the silly to the profound:
This ambivalence does not heed indecision or reflection without action. On the contrary, for Lou Reed it inspires play and frolic:
And it ends with an embrace of the ambivalence, the multivalence of love — and this, I would say, is joy, an affirmation of it all, a diving in even though he knows — knows — there will be pain and tears but also pleasure and delight: there will be life:
This is the greatest love song I know precisely because it embraces all the different modes of love, the different kinds of love. Because it loves without demanding univocality, loves without cliche, loves without bathos but with pathos, loves nonetheless, loves with feeling, loves with humor, loves with passion.
And isn’t that what love is all about?
You should follow Thought Catalog on Twitter here.
Tagged Analysis, Commentary, Criticism, Lou Reed, Love, Love Song, Lyrics, Overview, Some Kind of Love, Velvet Underground, Year of Feeling
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