It's a different kind of love.

On the surface, Perfect is just like a normal love song. Cale shows himself to be not only a mighty Welsh colossus and living legend, but also a modern Mr Darcy: “You’re not perfect, but you’re perfect for me!” he declares. Oh Cale, I wish you would come riding in on your white horse, fight Hugh Grant and carry me off into the sunset. But enough of that.

Though the lyrics offer some food for lolz (“IN PYJAMAS, YOU’RE PERFECT FOR ME!”), to really understand the song, it is the video we must look to.

It consists of Cale, being all white-prince like in… white, in a white room, with bare feet because obviously that will trick us all into thinking he’s all vulnerable and honest. But this is spliced with shots of a guitar plug that has a life of its own, burrowing through a host of things and by penetrating them, spreading a stain of corruption that, when the plug meets the guitar, eventually reaches Cale and leaves him all muddy and soiled and disintegrating the set.

So, obviously this means the song is about two things:

- Cale being penetrated
- STDs

And in Cale’s case, the two are connected. Let’s take a look at what he has to say about it in his autobio. This paragraph is about the time just after he’d met Lou, and his ~*~first time~*~. First time doing heroine, that is.

“You got a much stronger effect if you injected heroin, particularly if you shot it into a vein, but I was squeamish about needles. Lou took care of that by shooting me up for the first time. It was an intimate experience (….) This was magic for two guys as uptight and distanced from their surroundings as Lou and I. It opened a channel between us and created the conspiratorial us-against-them attitude which would become a hallmark of our band. At first we called ourselves The Falling Spikes. We also got hepatitis.” (What’s Welsh For Zen, p. 73)

His attitude to this particular kind of penetration, like everything else he ever says about Lou, has a wonderful undercurrent of sexuality and destruction, which expresses itself in their music. It’s probably no coincidence “Dear penis” (a famous comic song about impotence) is the number 1 record he would play on the last day on earth (as he said in his The Wire Death Row interview) . Lou’s attitude towards sex these days makes the same connection between music, penetration and disease- “I’m a musician, I haven’t had it up in 17 years.” (Transformer: The Lou Reed Story by Victor Bockris)

Perfect is probably not about Lou, but it certainly has a lot to do with him. “It’s a different kind of love”, indeed.

In a Flood

Very American western with the Johnny Cash slide and state name dropping. Cale's always a bit sensitive about his national identity.

I’ve always lived in the states. I came in ‘63...New York is hometown...Listen, I’m a product of America.

Cale mentions quoting from Alain Robbe-Grillet's novel Repetition on 'Hobosapiens': And in the first four pages, there are these stunning, riveting descriptions that took me back to what it was like being in New York when I first arrived there, the isolation and sense of desertion that you feel...you walk in and people look at you and they listen to you speak, and their attitude toward you just increases your feeling of isolation, because they recognize that you're foreign.

Perhaps this comes from being referred to in the press kits as a MIGHTY WELSH COLOSSUS.

Cale has said that this song is about a man running away from his lover, then realising what he's lost, and returning. However it sounds like a sinister love note to a cheating, crazy lover - Cindy, his second wife?

Cindy and Cale had a troubled, drugged marriage. Cale recalls in his bio that she was reminiscent of the volatility of Lou Reed. I don't mean he was the original Cindy, but it was a close run thing. At least the sexual relationship with Cindy was consummated (136). lol gayest gays.

I heard from other people where you went
Is delivered in a threatening whisper, which is not a little bit sensual. That strained dry whisper in your ear.
You had us worried all along: Cindy had given them a lot of worry in the past (What's Welsh for Zen pg.134)
Mention of the past again, and the line 'you thought you had it covered' seems to be addressed to the singer, an accusation with a retrospective wryness.

I had been drinking, so I got really loud with her. I said, 'Have you been taking heroin again, darling?' at the top of my lungs, very Noel Coward.

Let's compare, shall we?

Noel Coward: Wit ought to be a glorious treat like caviar; never spread it about like marmalade.
John Cale: Have you been taking heroin again...dahling?

Covered all over in grease. What was under the hood was alright. Puts one in mind of checking the carborator one more time in 'Things'. lol Cale leave car sex metaphors to Marc Bolan.

The soft repeated 'ohh' is quite calming and paternal, like a hush or a lullaby.
Perhaps Cale is commenting on the nature of their relationship, the role of husband as protector? He says in his bio that It was a huge responsibility (134), and refers to himself as a 'Florence Nightingale'.

'Mailman (The Lying Song)'

I'm sorry the mailman took your groove, John Cale :(

Now some words of wisdom from Daddy:

My favourite song on the album is ‘Mailman’. It’s about lying – if you tell someone you are a liar is it true? Contradictions and all that are a lot of fun. It has this atmosphere of someone who is caught in a kind of vortex of a mood and is talking about it very knowledgably, but has no idea of what he’s talking about in the end.

Sound familiar, John? This is the man who has also said that being a living legend is 'like being a bar of soap in a shower which doesn't have any water in it.'

(lol but not in a *gay* way you guise.)



You figure it out, stupid.

Frankly, I love when he gets his classical intellicock out. In an interview with Spedding, his former guitarist, Cale is quizzed on his music knowledge when Spedding plays different pieces:

1. Art Tatum "Willow Weep for Me"
JC: Hmmm, is this Erroll Garner?
CS: Nope
JC: Well. This thing is in two places at once. I don't know who it is.

2. Miles Davis, 'Cocierto de Aranjuez'
JC: Miles Davis. "Concierto de Aranjuez" by Rodrigo. From the Sketches of Spain album arranged and conducted by Gil Evans.
CS: Oh, really?
JC: Really.

In this song, we have a fun allusion where Cale compares himself to Jesus (You put a crown in my thorn) and has a schitzophrenic cheerleading squad:

You put a thought in my head.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oooh yeah

This put me in mind of a Sesame Street call and answer. However, I prefer the similarity to Bowie's 'Laughing Gnome', with the chorus of Cale's warbling gnome voices and their endless repitition.

On the subject of Bowie, Cale recently had an interview in UnCut, on "Heroes". He mentions the elusive bootleg they made: 'It was like the good old bad old days. We were partying very hard. It was exciting working with him, as there were a lot of possibilities and things, but we were our own worst enemies at that point.'

But it's essentially an epic suck up to Bowie, bc he wants to produce his album: 'Did I ever want to produce him? After spending time with him I realised the answer was no. The way we were then would have made it too dangerous. Nowadays it would be different though'. Translation: 'David, bb, why didn't you call? :*('

disclaimer: any music downloaded from this blog should be deleted within 24 hours because of some wanky rule that no one abides by

'Brotherman'

This is just some of the magic.

I had to brace myself to write this post. Because a man in his sixties trash-talking makes me very uncom-for-table.

This song makes it evident that Cale's concept of black culture comes primarily from drug dealers in New York in the 1960s. His unnerving falsetto features in this track, showcasing his ability to take the peculiarities of an aging (nanna) voice and make it into something creepy. He also samples a..cough.

Cale features in a doco on Sonic Youth, and at 6.40, he reveals that he came to New York 'to join a street gang'. Bockris wouldn't buy that shit.

Oh Cale, why you so hardxcore bb?



He writes reams of this shit every day. But you're feeling it.

Cale has said that the song originated in the studio, when he was making 'jokes' . He's a pretty funny guy. Remember that one about the chicken?

I made that track and I had no idea what to do with it. I was rapping in the studio - well, not rapping, just making up jokes. And everyone started laughing so I kept going.

It must be satisfying for him that the end result was true to his original intention, and we all die giggling as we listen to it.

‘Brotherman’ is an improvised track. I have this bad habit of rattling off about things in the world, like politics and stuff. So when I listen to that track what I really hear is me trying to stay away from it, and it’s one of the funkier tracks on the record because I worked on several different ones and this is the one that I kept – it has a good humour to it.

I love that all his interviews have the pace and coherence of a six year old telling their mother about their day at school. 'MY NAME IS JOHN CALE AND I AM 63 YEARS OLD AND THIS IS A STORY ABOUT ONE TIME WHEN I DID SOME SINGING'

This phase has also resulted in love notes to 'Drop it like it's Hot', and a stage experiment of rapping Hallelujah with samples of Marlo Brando yelling 'SHUT UP!'. I recommend watching this clip and imagining Cale doing Snoop's dance.

I was also after something like Snoop Dogg's 'Drop It Like It's Hot,' which knocked my socks off the first time I heard it. I have a lot of respect for Pharrell -- and Dre for that matter.

'For A Ride'

LOL YES JOHN CALE YOU CAN TAKE US FOR A RIDE.

Please note the complex use of language on take you for a ride: you see, Cale is not only referring to the journey he is proposing, but in this double entendre Cale is also making a sexual innuendo, in which he announces his intention to slam it.

I'd love to drive you round Paris and Rome
take you shopping then drive you home

This song is essentially a musical form of Pretty Woman. An older man is going to adopt you, and take you shopping in high falutin places. Because Cale is so stylish.

Speaking of the late nineties in his autobio, Cale has said that 'This was the period when I discovered again my sense of fashion.'



Evidently.

'Woman'

Old Cale is always hilarious, whether its his fascination with rap, or the mid life crisis that's been going since the mid-80s. The 2005 album 'Black Acetate' is no exception.

'Woman'. This song is really so funny it hurts. And it's also clearly about Lou Reed.

You're ignorant, you're cool, you never learn to say you're sorry.
Cale and Lou's bitter hate-hate-unf relationship is no secret from their fans.

There's a woman in my past
Cale might be parodying Reed's style of writing men as women in his songs: 'Stephanie [in Stephanie Says] is Steve Sesnick. To Lou, everybody's gay' (pg.125 in What's Welsh for Zen). Or referencing gay culture, or just calling Reed a laydee. Cause he's a bitch like that.

living on pins and needles
Cale making a snide remark about their shared affair with hard drugs.

who wants me in her present
The reunions for projects and gigs over the years. Also, gay.

smiling when you're angry
Lou's always posing - you can hear it in the demos from the Velvet's first album, when Lou laughs and then snaps on 'Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams'.

all those memories

In the Circus live version, Cale makes monkey noises, which we decided was about subtlely saying Lou was a monkey. lol.






Our video can say it better than words. We give you the TRUTH: