Sunday, January 30, 2022

Situations arise, because of the weather

I first heard the Velvet Underground's "Some Kind of Love" decades ago and I never really appreciated it until recently. The only thing that stuck with me about the song was the line "situations arise, because of the weather." I pretty much think of that line every time there's a snowstorm, like there was yesterday.

However, I was listening to Internet radio while doing some mundane online task recently and that song came on and it crept right up on me with its sneaky sexiness.

Perhaps it was because this was the first time I listened to it with headphones: I really picked up on Lou Reed's sexy little noises for the first time. Which in turn made me really listen to the lyrics.

Here it is. Put on your red headphones and find out.



Some kinds of love
Marguerita told Tom
Between thought and expression
Lies a lifetime
Situations arise
Because of the weather
And no kinds of love
Are better than others.

Some kinds of love
Marguerita told Tom
Like a dirty French novel
Combines the absurd with the vulgar
In some kinds of love
The possibilities're endless
And for me to miss one
Would seem to be groundless.

I heard what you said
Marguerita heard Tom
And of course you're a bore
But in that you're not charmless
Cause a bore is a straight line
That finds a wealth in division
And some kinds of love
Are mistaken for vision.

Put jelly on your shoulder
Let us do what you fear most
That from which you recoil
But which still makes your eyes moist
Put jelly on your shoulder baby
Lie down upon the carpet
Between thought and expression
Let us now kiss the culprit.

I don't know just what it's all about
But put on your red pajamas and find out


The song is only partially like a dirty French novel. Rather than combining the absurd with the vulgar it combines the absurd with the subtle.

We know that this isn't some kind of actual love because of the insult in the lyrics: "And of course you're a bore, but in that you're not charmless." That's not what you say to someone you love, it's what you say to someone you don't even like very much but you still find them sexually desirable. 

And that's what makes the possibilities endless.

Another subtle feature: put on your red pajamas. Not "put on your fishnet stockings" or "put on your ass-less chaps" but pajamas. Although they are still red pajamas.

Now about the jelly on your shoulder, which is mentioned twice. The Internet has thoughts:



 Jelly was old black jazz slang eg Jelly Roll and commonly picked up by white musicians like Van Morrison etc.


The "jelly" is KY, and it's on the shoulder for easy reaching?


Lou introduces this song on their live album as follows:

"This song is called 'Some Kinda Love', which is a dialogue between a guy called Tom and a woman called Margharita, and he's just trying to drink her like tequila and she doesn't like being salt thrown over her shoulder."

Hope to have helped.


Though I will say that “Some Kinda Love” ends with a pretty strong insinuation of girl-on-guy buttsex, unless there’s another way to read “Put jelly on your shoulder/ and do what you feel most… that from which you recoil but which still makes your eyes moist…lie down upon the carpet.” Who needs Fifty Shades of Gray?


petroleum jelly on the shoulder was used so the lube is easy to reach I believe

Between thoughts and expression... 

This one was my favorite:



I think Lou wanted to suggest a deviant practice so strange that nobody could put their finger on the details — like Iggy Pop's "Of course I've had it in the ear before." But that's just a hunch, and I can't see how anyone could prove it one way or the other.

That's the way to do it - it keeps things slightly inscrutable and open to imagination.

I never found Lou Reed especially attractive except for maybe his Transformer period.

But that man can make some sexy noises.




 



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