Humber College

Music response essay

VELVET UNDERGROUND –THE VENUS IN FURS

Viktoria Arakelyan

Humber College

Venus in fursis an utterly decadent and mythic piece by The Velvet Underground. It interlaces in an exquisite way with the story originally told by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch in his novel “Venus in Furs”. Not only do the lyrics interlace with the original plot, but also the music itself – if one listens attentively, he will certainly hear the story of cruel pleasure of domination told by cacophonous John Cale’s violin, and, supposedly, sarinda (stringed Nepali folk instrument). He will also hear the story of exhaustion and painful pleasure of worship as told by Lou Reed’s ‘ostrich’ guitar. And he will hear both in Reed’s vocals.

I’m not daring to say, though, that the song by any means “retells” the story. First of all, because that would diminish its value to a mere representation of a book – as if we are saying this song is worth listening just because it is an amusing kind of audiobook. Secondly, according to Philipp Ball, (2010) people over-evaluate the ability of music to tell stories exclusively by its own means, which often leads to rather absurdist conclusions like Beethoven’s music being misogynistic. That definitely happened a numerous times to “The Venus In Furs” – people claim it to be about heroin addiction (as they do about every piece ever written by Lou Reed), and other people willingly support the idea, ceasing to realize that this fact itself seems so logically obvious because what they do is abstract from the music and concentrate on biography. Mixing composers’ biography into the “message” of the musical piece seems unbearably tempting, though should be avoided if we are talking about music.

“One might argue that surely composers do sometimes intend that their works have specific meanings” (Ball, 2010, p.390). Which is probably the case with this song – although the band never mentioned it, using the same names and concepts as those used in Sacher-Masoch’s book may be considered self-explanatory. However, does this mean that a person unfamiliar with the book itself will not hear any story while listening to that song? Or does that mean the story or the ‘message’ they will hear would ultimately be wrong? That way of thinking shifts the core value of music from appreciation of sound canvas to looking for precision of information it delivers. That means what Ball refers to as “misunderstanding music altogether”.

In my essay I do not intend to completely ignore the lyrics’ base, which is undoubtedly the homonymous novel, because that would mean to deprive us from observing novels’ concepts beautifully embedded into the song. But I will not by any means make that the center of my meditation. The center will be the Song itself, the Melody and the Instrumentation.

But before heading on to the transcendent matter of sound, I would like to look at how that particular song may or may not shift our emotions, move us and become for us an identity-building (or identity-reflecting) base.

Ball (2010) writes – “Very often, we may recognize music as having a particular emotional quality without it actually awakening that emotion in us”. That is fairly similar with what Levitin, D. (2008) says about language – “An important property of language is that we can talk about things that are not there. We can talk about fear without actually being scared”. Thus, we may assume that music, being a language at least to some extent, (as it shares similar patterns with language) is capable of keeping us aware of the presence of a certain emotion, even though not necessarily pushing us into actually experiencing it. What emotion does “The Venus In Furs” unconditionally obtain? Painful exhaustion, sinful desires, sexual arousal, anticipation or even longing – that is what I hear in it, and others might hear a whole range of different emotional shades. But in the world of black and white, or happy and sad it would be significantly leaning towards “sad” – because it absolutely doesn’t fit into the concept of joy and happiness.

Now, according to Ball (2010), “Sad music presumably offers more pleasure than pain, or we would not listen to it so much… we can’t equate pleasure in music solely with happy and pleasant attributes”. Here is the point where the fun begins.

Doesn’t the idea of finding pleasure in pain and sadness correlate to the core idea of masochism? And doesn’t the message of “The Venus In Furs” by The Velvet Underground also correlate with ideas of masochism? Finding things, which are not supposed to be pleasant, far more pleasing than those, which are actually designed to bring positive emotions – that is the great mystery of human nature. We generally love being dominated (“taken over”) by the music. We like to submit to it. We like to be torn apart by the heartbreaking beauty and complexity of musical ornament. Pieces of music that do that for us transport us to, or at least make us more highly aware of emotions they deliver.

The act of submission to music, though, doesn’t mean sole adoration – it does imply a strong engagement into listening process, as well as submission to a person which we observe in “Venus In Furs” requires engagement from both sides. As one choses a song to submit to, he grants it with power to shift and tear apart his feelings, but at the same time offers it his full attention and appreciation.

From this we get to the next point, stated by Leonard Meyer (1954) – “In music, the state of suspense involves an awareness of the powerlessness of man in the face of the unknown”.

“Powerlessness of man in the face of unknown” – yet another beautiful correlation to a man’s desperate need to submit to something higher, something more powerful than he is. I can even go further with talking about how submitting to something works as a tool of self-confirmation, but that will take us too far from music.

The structure of a tune predetermines if we are going to emotionally respond to it or not. Ball (2010) suggests that “…only when there is some frustration of that anticipated satisfaction that the emotions are truly engaged”. That is, when music at least for a short period deprives you of the pleasure of fulfilling your expectation, and after that period finally rewards you with it - the pleasure you get doubles the pleasure you would have gotten if immediately exposed to your expectation at its fullest. With “The Venus In Furs” it gets more complex – as “there is no intro or buildup to the song” (Erich Kuersten, 2013). That oddness of structure at the same time doesn’t trigger any particular expectation about further directions of melody and keeps listener into constant expectation of “relief”. The same constant feeling of longing for relief Severin felt in his submissive relationships with Wanda – although it was his wish to be in complete power of that woman, at the moments of extreme exhaustion he desperately longed for relief. He waited for the “game” to end and for the real life beginning, life in which his torturer would become his loving wife. That moment never came. The same can be observed in The Velvet Underground’s song – it almost has a form of an infinite loop to it, which is strongly backed by the first and last verses being the same –

“Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather

Whiplash girlchild in the dark

Comes in bells, your servant, don't forsake him

Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart”.

So it never brings you to the reward – or, to some extent, the very end of the song is the reward itself as the end of relationship with Wanda has been a reward to Severin. That is where the deepest correlation of the novel and the song lies – not in just replicating the names and the plot in lyrics.

To finish with talk about this song being a tool, a trigger etc., I would like to refer to Tia DeNora’s (2003) ideas of music as an identity – building and identity-reflective mean: “Music is a ‘mirror’ that allows one to ‘see one’s self’. It is, also, however, a ‘magic mirror’ in so far as its specific material properties also come to configure (for example, transfigure, disfigure) the image reflected in and through its (perceived) structures.”

That means that people can chose music according to how do they feel now and in a way perceive themselves through perception of music, but also they are able to transform that self-perception by the means of music, choosing certain piece according to where to they want to go either physically or emotionally. “The Venus In Furs” in particular might be a term for perceiving yourself in strong correlation with one of the song’s characters, or finding a reflection of your identity in some particular pieces of melody as some of DeNora’s respondents did, and finding a comfort in confirmation of your identity through certain parts of the song. It can also be used to transport people into (DeNora, 2003) “modes of agency they perceive to be ‘demanded’ by particular circumstances “, - in that sense, this song by many might be found appropriate for crating mood for heading out into a decadent place, or even getting ready for sex – both for submissive or otherwise.

DeNora’s idea of transporting power of music to me seems pretty identical of Aldous Huxley (1963) idea of transporting power of art. The difference is, while DeNora talks about transporting into existing and “real” realms of one’s identity or associative memory, Huxley talks about transporting oneself to “visual antipodes” by means of certain kinds of art – bright, glittering colors, that he believed to be similar to those obtained by the creatures of highest imaginary existing in our minds, “visual antipodes”. I would argue that not only visual art might have that Huxley’s “transporting power”, but also pieces of music which contain odd, almost “glittering” in its pure Isness sounds, such as Cale’s violin and the transcendental distortion met at the last minute of “The Venus In Furs”.

As I listen to that song, I hear a glorious dialogue of tambourine with violin. I hear how the violin imitates the strikes of the whip, but that might be just my strong association with the novel. I hear the chills-giving tension of ‘ostrich’ guitar (type of tuning, that assigns one note to all strings). I hear Lou Reed’s voice being dominating and luring, especially at lines “Taste the whip, in love not given lightly/ Taste the whip, now plead for me”, when you can almost hear Reed’s devilish grin, and almost immediately becoming pleading and submissive at lines “I am tired, I am weary, I could sleep for thousand years/ A thousand dreams that would awake me/ Different colors made of tears”. This chorus is almost a mantra-like, meditative. It covers my senses with a kind of opium haze. I hear a percussion heartbeat ornamenting the tune all the way from beginning to the end.

I gradually come to a realization of what makes this song valuable.

It is the very anticipation of sound. If there would be a second of silence at any particular moment of that song, it would be fulfilled with anticipation of sound. Of one more round of charmingly distorted violin. Of one more moment of drone guitar, with all its strings set to D.

The silence would play a role of vital question, and a sound would become a triumphant reply to it.

But there is one question we got to ask ourselves after all. Do we have an absolute value in the eyes of music we listen to? Do we offer it our full attentiveness, or do we exploit it to reach emotions that we would find satisfying at the given moment? I believe we should accept the music’s generous invitation to engage with it. As well as we should accept that invitation from the very universe we exist in.