White Light/White Heat (song)

"White Light/White Heat" is a song by American avant-garde rock band The Velvet Underground, the title track on their second album, released in 1968. It is a fast, relentlessly aggressive start to the album, similar to the punk rock genre it would ultimately influence.

The song's vocals are performed primarily by Lou Reed, with John Cale and Sterling Morrison performing backing vocals. The song, much like "I'm Waiting for the Man", features a pounding rock-and-roll Barrelhouse-style piano vamp. The song is about the sensations produced by intravenous injection of methamphetamine and features a heavily distorted electric bass outro played by John Cale over a single chord. This bass solo purportedly mimics the throbbing, ear-ringing effects experienced during the methamphetamine "rush."

"White Light/White Heat" was released in 1968 as a single with the B-side "Here She Comes Now". "White Light/White Heat" was also a staple of the Velvet Underground's live performances from 1967 on. The tune appears on numerous live bootleg albums, and the nearly nine-minute version included on the group's posthumous 1969 Live double LP is one of the album's centerpieces.

White Light/White Heat

White Light/White Heat is the second studio album by American rock band the Velvet Underground, released in 1968 by record label Verve. It was the band's last studio recording of new material with bassist and founding member John Cale.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 293 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Background

After the disappointing sales of the Velvet Underground's first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), the band's relationship with Andy Warhol deteriorated. They toured throughout most of 1967. Many of their live performances featured noisy improvisations that would become key elements on White Light/White Heat. The band eventually fired Warhol and parted ways with Nico; and ultimately went on to record their second album with Tom Wilson credited as producer.

Recording

The album was recorded in just two days, and with a noticeably different style than The Velvet Underground & Nico. John Cale described White Light/White Heat as "a very rabid record... The first one had some gentility, some beauty. The second one was consciously anti-beauty." Sterling Morrison said: "We were all pulling in the same direction. We may have been dragging each other off a cliff, but we were all definitely going in the same direction. In the White Light/White Heat era, our lives were chaos. That's what's reflected in the record." During the recording of "Sister Ray", producer Tom Wilson reportedly left the studio rather than endure the cacophony.