Probabilistic Jukebox: "Sweet Jane" by the Velvet Underground

Oil painting titled "Staffordshire bull terrier belonging to the Rev. John Gower" by J.M. Crossland, 1851

At a recent panel discussion led by some of the most well-known music bloggers around, it was more or less agreed upon that music blogs are a disappointment. Just a few years ago, music writers and fans had high hopes for music blogs - they represented a new outlet for creative writing about music, a place where ideas and opinions could be shared, elevating the level of music discourse to new heights. As it turns out, though, music blogs are mostly being used to recycle the latest snippets of music news - the most recent album leaks, promo tracks, Youtube videos, and gossip stories are posted with a brief caption and a link to the source. Today, the big thing will probably be the cover of Fleetwood Mac's "I Walk a Thin Line" that Bradford Cox of Deerhunter has posted on his blog. Maybe I should just give up and link to it as well - it's a pretty sweet cover of one of my favorite songs.

Of course, these negative thoughts about trying to come up with original content for a music blog are fueled by "Sweet Jane". When "Probabilistic Jukebox" day rolls around each week, I tell myself that I will write about whatever comes up first on Winamp (that's right, it's NOT EVEN A REAL JUKEBOX!) But what is there to write about "Sweet Jane"? It's one of the definitive classic rock songs and one of Lou Reed's best compositions - there's no way I can say anything about it that hasn't already been said. But this blog is about music I love and my experiences with it, so I'll give it a shot. My apologies in advance.

My first Velvet Underground album was the band's third - the self-titled album of 1968. I loved this album a lot from the start, being entirely ignorant of it's place in the band's discography. I didn't know about John Cale being replaced by Doug Yule on this album, and this probably has a lot to do with me being a big Doug Yule apologist. His "pop" influence is what makes later Velvet Underground a lot of fun for me, so I naturally have a lot of love for the band's final album, Loaded, as well. It blends some of Lou Reed's best songwriting with Yule's pop sensibilities to create a lightweight but eminently listenable set of songs.

It's unfortunate that Yule sings lead on too many of the tracks - it's more than a little shameful to admit that my favorite VU song in the whole canon is the Yule-sung "I Found a Reason". I like it better than "Sweet Jane". So that's what I have to say about "Sweet Jane" - best Reed-sung song on Loaded, second best song on the album. One caveat, though: I've never heard the full version of "Sweet Jane" from the Fully Loaded version of the album, only the version posted here, which was on the original 1970 release.

"Sweet Jane" by the Velvet Underground