Songs for Drella

Infobox Album
Name = Songs for Drella


Type = Album
Artist = Lou Reed and John Cale
Released = April, 11 1990
Recorded = at Sigma Sound, New York City
Genre = Art rock
Length = 52:54
Label = Sire Records
Producer = Lou Reed and John Cale
Reviews = *Allmusic Rating|4.5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:d9foxqt5ldke link]
*Robert Christgau (A-) [http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?id=3552&name=Lou+Reed%2FJohn+Cale]
*"Q" Rating|4|5
*"Rolling Stone" Rating|4|5 [http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/loureed/albums/album/198555/rid/5944531/ link]
Misc = Extra chronology 2
Artist = Lou Reed
Type = Album
Last album = "New York"
(1989)
This album = "Songs for Drella"
(1990)
Next album = "Magic and Loss"
(1992)Extra chronology 2
Artist = John Cale
Type = Album
Last album = "Words for the Dying"
(1989)
This album = "Songs for Drella"
(1990)
Next album = "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues"
(1991)

"Songs for Drella" is a concept album by Lou Reed and John Cale, alumni of The Velvet Underground.

On January 9, 1989 Cale and Reed performed a selection of "Songs for Drella" at The Church of St. Anne's in Brooklyn. The first full version was played on November 29-30, and December 2-3 at the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. On the last date they were joined onstage by Maureen Tucker for the encore of "Pale Blue Eyes".

It was released in 1990 by Sire Records. A live performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, directed by Ed Lachman, was filmed and released on VHS and laserdisc formats.

The album is the pair's first collaboration since 1972, and is dedicated to the memory of Andy Warhol, their mentor, who had died unexpectedly in 1987. Drella was a nickname coined by Warhol superstar Ondine for Warhol, a contraction of Dracula and Cinderella, used by Warhol's crowd.

"Songs for Drella" offers a kind of "vie romancée" of Warhol, focusing on his interpersonal relations. The songs fall roughly into three categories: Warhol's (semi-fictitious) first-person perspective, third-person narratives chronicling events and affairs, and first-person feelings towards and commentaries on Warhol by Reed and Cale themselves.

Reed and Cale had been playing the songs live in 1989 as a song cycle before committing them to tape. By the end of recording Cale vowed never to work with Reed again due to personal differences; nevertheless, "Songs for Drella" would prove to be the overture to a full-blown Velvet Underground reunion.

Although the album was conceived as an indivisible whole, a single was released off it, "Nobody But You".

Track listing

All songs written by Lou Reed and John Cale. All vocals by Reed except songs marked with † by Cale.

# "Small Town" - 2:04
# "Open House" - 4:18
# "Style It Takes" - 2:54 †
# "Work" - 2:38
# "Trouble with Classicists" - 3:42 †
# "Starlight" - 3:28
# "Faces and Names" - 4:12 †
# "Images" - 3:31
# "Slip Away (A Warning)" - 3:05
# "It Wasn't Me" - 3:30
# "I Believe" - 3:18
# "Nobody But You" - 3:46
# "A Dream" - 6:33 †
# "Forever Changed" - 4:52 †
# "Hello It's Me" - 3:13

Personnel

* Lou Reed – vocals, guitar
* John Cale – vocals, keyboards, viola

References