Best Velvet Underground Quotes & Sayings

I like their darkness but I also like the pop-side of the Velvet Underground. — Martin Gore

When I was very little, I was into Michael Jackson. At six or seven, it was Madonna, but she's not what she used to be. I've been into everything from Edith Piaf to Joe Strummer to the Velvet Underground to Suicide to A Tribe Called Quest to African music. — Lykke Li

I guess, for me, what started me getting real excited about music was the New York punk and new-wave scene. All those bands looked back to the Velvet Underground and the Stooges and the Modern Lovers as well. But that was back when Television were punk, and the Talking Heads were punk. — Dean Wareham

I like Velvet Underground, but I was never really hardcore into them. I like them, and I like Nico, but I won't front like I'm super knowledgeable. I just never got around to it. — Eric Andre

As a songwriter, oddly enough, my influences were people like Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, and Buddy Holly. Some psychedelic stuff, too. — Ric Ocasek

It's hard to imagine the whole punk movement without The Velvet Underground. I toured with them when they did their reunion tour, and no one sounds like that; they are a very unique-sounding band. — Dean Wareham

When I was growing up, I fetishised New York City. It was the land of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, it was where Leonard Cohen wrote 'Chelsea Hotel', it was CBGBs and all the punk rock clubs. Artists and musicians lived there, and it was cheap and dangerous. — Moby

The Plastic People of the Universe played 'Venus in Furs' from Velvet Underground, and I knew everything was basically okay. — Tom Stoppard

I knew about things like Iggy Pop and The Velvet Underground, weirdly, before I knew about David Bowie. I didn't know what David Bowie was, when I was a kid. I thought he was like Visage. — Stewart Lee

Sometimes they ask if you want to hook up your iPod for background music. Do not do this. It's a trap. They'll put it on shuffle, and no matter how much Beastie Boys or Velvet Underground you have on there, the following four tracks will play in a row; "We'd Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover" from Annie, "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips, "That's What Friends Are For, Various Artists, and "We'd Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover" from Annie. — Tina Fey

The clothes I wear ... that doesn't change. I love long dresses. I love velvet. I love high boots. I never change. I love the same eye make-up. I'm not a fad person. I still have everything I had then. That's one part of me ... that's where my songs come from. There's a song on the new Fleetwood Mac album [Mirage] that says, 'Going back to the velvet underground/back to the floor that I love,' because I always put my bed on the floor. 'To a room with some lace and paper flowers/ back to the gypsy that I was.' — Stevie Nicks

No part of Manhattan these days really has the same vibe I get from a Ramones song or a Velvet Underground song. — Ezra Koenig

I'm Set Free"

I've been set free and I've been bound
To the memories of yesterday's clouds
I've been set free and I've been bound

And now I'm set free
I'm set free
I'm set free to find a new illusion

I've been blinded but
You I can see
What in the world has happened to me
The prince of stories who walk right by me

And now I'm set free
I'm set free
I'm set free to find a new illusion

I've been set free and I've been bound
Let me tell you people
What I found
I saw my head laughing
Rolling on the ground

And now I'm set free
I'm set free
I'm set free to find a new illusion — The Velvet Underground

I grew up in the '90s. I listened to a lot of The Clash, Velvet Underground and Roxy Music. I wasn't into Boyzone, or anything. — Aaron Taylor-Johnson

If you would keep your soul
From spotted sight or sound,
Live like the velvet mole;
Go burrow underground. — Elinor Wylie

The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band — Brian Eno

As a teen, I heard the second Velvet Underground album, 'White Light/White Heat,' and it was too much for my limited scope of appreciation. It was intense, but I didn't get it. — Henry Rollins

I do a cover of a Velvet Underground song, and they were one of the most important bands, for me. — Martin Gore

I think Andy Kaufman is to comedy what the Velvet Underground was to music - it's like, 80 thousand records sold, but everybody who bought one started a band. — Courtney Love

Though gay lifestyles have certainly moved into the open, there's little evidence that society has become more open in its basic attitudes or that entertainers should feel cozy in emerging from the velvet underground. — Peter Bart

One of the greatest learning experiences I had was hanging out with Maureen Tucker from the Velvet Underground. There's a woman who has no training and has a very simplistic and very tribal drumming style. I don't even know that she can even do a drum roll, but she's probably my favorite rock drummer because she plays every note perfect. — Glenn Kotche

As a New Yorker you can't help but be proud of the fact that so much music and culture started here. Punk rock, jazz, hip-hop and house music started here, George Gershwin debuted 'Rhapsody in Blue' here; the Velvet Underground are from New York. — Moby

And then I think of the Velvet Underground's doleful song "Jesus," from their third and least renowned or appreciated album. It is my favorite. "Jesus / Help me find my proper place / Help me in my weakness / 'Cause I'm falling out of grace." The only words in the song, repeated repeatedly, composed by Lou Reed, a Jew. You see, in the hour of darkness, it is easier to turn to the Son of God than to God Himself, for some reason. I'm not sure why. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

At 18, I moved to L.A. with my heavy metal band Avant Garde, which was very much influenced by Metallica. At 19, I got a job at Tower Records, and everything started to change very quickly. I started listening to the Velvet Underground, Pixies, early Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and also earlier music like the Beatles. — Rivers Cuomo

Parallels between classical and pop are not new. The whole San Francisco movement of John Cage and Terry Riley went hand in glove with what the Velvet Underground were doing. — Charles Hazlewood

Everybody gets a tag. If you listen to a Velvet Underground record, you don't think, 'Godfathers of Punk.' You just think, 'This sounds great.' The tags are there in order to help try to sell something by giving it a name that's going to stick in somebody's memory. But it doesn't describe it. So 'depressing' isn't a word I would use to describe my music. But there is some sadness in it
there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter. — Elliott Smith

Not many people bought Velvet Underground LPs, but those who did, started a band. — Brian Eno

It was around this time that I'd begun trying to perfect the art of fucking with people's minds. I'd figured out that when someone else was hogging the limelight, you could cut him down to size by bringing up a subject he didn't know anything about. If the other person knew a lot about literature, I'd talk about the Velvet Underground; if he knew a lot about rock, I'd talk about Messiaen; if he knew a lot about classical music, I'd talk about Roy Lichtenstein; if he knew a lot about pop art, I'd talk about Jean Genet; and so on. Do that in a small provincial city and you never lose an argument. — Ryu Murakami

When a band becomes as truly iconic as the Velvet Underground, there will often be a box set released, overburdened with mediocre material that dilutes what was fine left on its own. — Henry Rollins