Since I revel in the pointless, yesterday I was scouring to find whether The Velvet Underground (or Lou Reed, to be more precise) were the first to introduce dark and complex lyrics to rock. The precise motivation for this is unclear, as it is with so many things I do. For starters, I have nothing better to do; but also, I had read a bit on the net of people trying to be level-headed about VU, and mentioning that there were other acts that introduced the element of serious lyrics to rock before they did.

Note that I only really looked for the origins of some of their songs, in an attempt to see whether they were the first group with serious lyrics. They are renowned for many other things too, such as the birth of punk, goth, new wave, and any other category you'd like to chuck in, but these are not in question here, partly because I wasn't particularly interested in this aspect, but also because it's much harder to determine whether someone influenced other people.

What I've come up with so far is this. Their first album was released in 1967, perhaps the greatest year for albums ever (Sgt. Pepper, The Doors, Are You Experienced?, Magical Mystery Tour, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, Surrealistic Pillow, Days Of Future Passed...). To which one might initially think "Well, that's that then - Jim Morrison exploded onto the scene at the same time with "The End". Top that". But a little more research revealed that the album was in fact recorded in 1966, but it was only released in '67 due to delays. Ah, but The Doors were performing "The End" in 1966 too - although at what time specifically is unclear. Ok, so there may be an edge over Morrsion, but still, there is enough uncertainty to tilt the scales in Morrison's favour.

Then it got interesting, because apparently Morrison himself was in the crowd for one of the Velvet's shows in '66! Yep, it seems he was a film student at the UCLA, and he was there to hear the Velvets perform their most provocative numbers (Venus In Furs, Heroin). So did the Velvets influence the Lizard King?! Unclear, but it would seem so.

Ah, but the timeline stretches further into the past. It seems that it was as early as 1965 that the Velvets were playing Heroin, including their famous performance at a high-school auditorium. So how old is this song already!?

Well, older still, possibly, because apparently the Velvets formed in late '64!! That places them ahead of most competition, and leads me to conclude that maybe they were the first to think about introducing the darker side of life to the world.

It's important to keep in mind, however, that none of this really matters. Well, that's not entirely true, but it probably doesn't matter as much as I've made it out to be. 'Twas just me filling up time, I suppose. I don't believe that it automatically affirms all the great things people have said about the Velvets, but rather it merely hints (important! I say hints, not shows, because I can't really establish the validity of some of my sources) that they were revolutionary in a lyrical aspect.

So, the outcome is that I now think that it was VU, and not Morrison, who introduced a darker shade of rock. However, Morrison certainly introduced it to the general public, because the Doors' debut was a huge success. Then of course there's the question of whether stuff like "Break On Through" is in some sense 'better' dark rock to the Velvet's stuff. Which one is more important is another matter entirely, of course, and falls into the lovely realm of subjectivity vs. objectivity.

At the same time, I don't know that Reed introduced serious lyrics to rock. Darker, yes, but serious, no. That would still have to be Dylan. In '64, he recorded "My Back Pages" and "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll", which I think are beautiful examples of serious lyrics ("My Back Pages" in particular is pure poetry). And was it not in '63 that he recorded "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"? Of course, some people argue that Reed introduced serious lyrics to rock, as opposed to folk, which is sort of where Dylan's loyalties lied at the time. Still, with Another Side Of Bob Dylan he closes with "It Ain't Me Babe", which some interpret as being his statement that he was not the messiah who would save folk music, because his interests lied elsewhere. Who knows?

Ah, nothing like a long, pointless post to start the day!