In 1966, Nico recorded with The Velvet Underground. They recorded The Velvet Underground and Nico. The band’s first album. Nico sang “Femme Fatale” and “All Tomorrow’s Parties” and “I’ll Be Your Mirror.” She inspired “I’ll Be Your Mirror.” After a show, she said to Lou Reed, “Oh Lou, I’ll be your mirror.” According to Sterling Morrison, who played guitar and bass, Nico’s voice nearly ruined “I’ll Be Your Mirror.” She couldn’t sound light or pretty or breakable. She sounded low and dark.
Nico held a tambourine. John Cale, who played bass, organ, piano, and electric viola, said there was a certain value in a pretty blonde girl holding a tambourine.
In 1967, Nico recorded Chelsea Girl. Her first solo album.
I heard Nico before I heard The Velvet Underground. I liked Chelsea Girl before I liked The Velvet Underground and Nico.
I didn’t grow up listening to Nico.
I didn’t hear Nico playing in Plan 9 when I went there in high school, when Jay still worked there and told me stories about Led Zeppelin and showed me how to look for nice vinyl. I didn’t find a slightly scratched copy of Chelsea Girl on the floor of my dad’s car along with Abbey Road and Let It Bleed and London Calling and other CDs I borrowed and kept and loved when I was fifteen. I didn’t hear “I’ll Keep It With Mine” or “Somewhere There’s a Feather” years later in the apartment where we all sat on the floor and tried to stay quiet while talking about sweaters and Sour Patch Kids, all the while maybe listening to Neil Young.
I first heard “These Days” sometime in the spring of my first year of college. Sitting next to a skinny window in the stacks and watching leaves move outside. Not reading about galaxies or writing five to seven pages on Macbeth, but listening to piano-based French songs and pop-folk songs. Someone else’s shuffled mix.
I listened to “These Days” again, still sitting by the skinny window and watching leaves move. I listened to “These Days” later, trying to figure out how to play the quick guitar notes at the beginning of the song. I listened to “These Days” again even later, not sleeping, but staring at moonlight through the blinds and thinking about people I hadn’t spoken to since winter.
Summer isn’t Nico’s season. Summer isn’t the season for a deep voice singing about love and leaving home. Still, I played “The Fairest of the Seasons” twice while taking slow turns through a parking garage one afternoon last July. Windows down. Humidity streaming in.
When I play the record, I have to flip it over after “It Was a Pleasure Then,” and the second side begins with “Chelsea Girls.” I didn’t like “It Was a Pleasure Then” at first, maybe because of Nico’s distant, haunted wail, and I didn’t like “Chelsea Girls” either, maybe because of the flute.
Nico hated Chelsea Girl. She didn’t want violins and flutes. She only wanted drums and more guitars. A simpler sound.
If I could, I’d listen to Chelsea Girl as Nico wanted it, but I can’t turn down the violins and flutes.
I listen to Chelsea Girl when I wake up to the sound of rain on a Sunday morning and pull the covers tight around my body, when I walk past the little white house where I used to live and notice the blue hydrangeas that never bloomed last year. I listen to Chelsea Girl when I make tea in the middle of the night, when I smoke on my fire escape and watch people in the building next door walk into their kitchens and drink water. I listen to Chelsea Girl when I hang my clothes from doorknobs and books from the shower rod because I got caught in a storm walking home. I listen to Chelsea Girl when I eat breakfast alone.
I listen to Chelsea Girl whenever I’m leaving.
