The Velvet Underground Songs - Black Angel's Death Song Lyrics

The Velvet Underground - Black Angel's Death Song

The Velvet Underground - Black Angel's Death Song Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Velvet Underground & Nico
Released: 1967

Black Angel's Death Song Lyrics

The myriad choices of his fate
Set themselves out upon a plate
For him to choose
What had he to lose

Not a ghost bloodied country
All covered with sleep
Where the black angel did weep
Not an old city street in the east
Gone to choose

And wandering's brother
Walked on through the night
With his hair in his face
On a long splintered cut from the knife of g.t.

The rally man's patter ran on through the dawn
Until we said so long
To his skull-shrill yell

Shining brightly red-rimmed and
Red-lined with the time
Infused with the choice of the mind
On ice skates scraping chunks
From the bells

Cut mouth bleeding razor's
Forgetting the pain
Antiseptic remains cool goodbye
So you fly
To the cozy brown snow of the east
Gone to choose, choose again

Sacrificials remains make it hard to forget
Where you come from
The stools of your eyes
Serve to realize fame, choose again

And roverman's refrain of the sacrilege recluse
For the loss of a horse
Went the bowels and a tail of a rat
Come again, choose to go

And if epiphany's terror reduced you to shame
Have your head bobbed and weaved
Choose a side to be on

If the stone glances off
Split didactics in two
Leave the colors of the mouse trails
Don't scream, try between
If you choose, if you choose, try to lose
For the loss of remain come and start

Start the game i che che che che i
Che che ka tak koh
Choose to choose
Choose to choose, choose to go

Writer/s: REED, LOU / CALE, JOHN
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, GARNANT MUSIC, SONY ATV MUSIC PUB LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Black Angel's Death Song

This song covers a variety of topics but the main one has to do with Communism. Lou Reed was and is today an avid supporter of choice, hence all the mentions of choice and choosing. Some of the failed attempts at Communism are mentioned as well. When Reed says, "To the cozy brown snow of the east" and "Not a ghost bloodied country," these are blatant references to Russia and the USSR. Reed was trying to say that Communism will never and should never exist in a modern-day society. (This analysis was completed by Matt Skaroff and Colin Rementer)

According to The Velvet Underground: An Illustrated History of a Walk on the Wild Side , this song, written by Lou Reed and John Cale, features Cale on the electric viola, showing his John Cage influence and drone/noise style. Here his dissonant notes weave around the song like a buzzing mosquito, almost harassing it. Those bursts of audio feedback are also provided by Cale, who simply blew into the microphone at punctuated intervals.

"The Black Angel's Death Song" was one of four songs recorded in July 1965 for the still-forming group's first demo tape. They were inspired at the time by recordings which Cale had brought back from a trip to the UK, by groups such as The Who and The Kinks.

The Velvet Underground's original drummer was Angus MacLise, a neighbor of Cale's who sometimes played drums with the Theater of Eternal Music. Shortly after recording the demo session that included this song, MacLise quit the group, who was an idealistic purist who disliked the idea of being paid to play music or of having to keep a schedule. He was replaced by Maureen "Moe" Tucker, and the rest is history.

The The Velvet Underground & Nico album was partly recorded at the run-down Scepter Recording Studio, on West 54th Street, financed by Warhol and bankrolled in part by Columbia Records sales executive Norman Dolph. Dolph also served as engineer, along with John Licata. The rest of the album was recorded in T.T.G. Studios in Hollywood, California with engineer Omi Haden.

The Black Angels, a psychedelic rock band from Austin, Texas which formed in 2004, derived their name from this song. This echoes the most famous quote about the Velvet Underground, "Only five thousand people ever bought a Velvet Underground album, but every single one of them started a band."