Nico didn’t know Lenny Bruce, but she moved in the same circles as Tim Hardin and it’s only appropriate that she adopted his song. The three of them – singer, songwriter and subject – form an eerie circle indeed. They all shared one thing, the nihilism of narcotic addiction. It’s in Hardin’s lyrics and in the desolation of Nico’s voice, though in 1967 she was far from the spectre she would become. To, from and about a junkie.
I’ve lost a friend
And I don’t know why
But never again
Will we get together to die.
And why after every last shot
Was there always another?
Why after all you hadn’t got
Did you leave your life to your mother?
And Honey Harlow
The singer burlesque queen
How did she know
You needed morphine?
Why didn’t you listen
To the warning words of your friends
While they told you so?
I know you couldn’t listen
To people talk about
What they didn’t know.
I’ve lost a friend
And I don’t know why
But never again
Will we get together to die.
And why after every last shot
Was there always another?
Why after all you hadn’t got
Did you leave your life to your mother?
We’ve well established that I adore Jim Morrison, Sopholcean pretentions and all. But, push comes to shove, I think Nico’s version of The End is superior. No one could conceivably accuse Nico of posturing – she sang straight from the pits of hell. Nico had an unrivaled ability to attracted gifted and famous lovers, all of whom wanted to make her their muse but ended up doing the opposite. Nico refused to be anyone’s conception of her. Men wrote songs for her, not about her. She was never the girl in the song. One of her celebrated paramours was Jim Morrison. Their fling was short-lived and volatile. Though he never presented her with giftwrapped song, he influenced her deeply. She later credited him with encouraging her to write her to start writing her own songs. He wasn’t a supporter of heroin, considering it too destructive, but he surely would have approved of the iconoclastic path she chose for herself. She would be no one’s pretty girl. She would live outside the norm and she would explore her own outer boundaries. Appearing a heroin ravaged ghost of herself in the seventies, she was in fact at her creative peak, living as she wanted, making the haunting music that is still without even a distant peer. She did, in her perverse way, enjoy the freedom of total exile into poverty and obscurity. Morrison may even have envied, had he been able to, her dedication to the interwoven helix of destruction and inspiration. In return for the words of wisdom, Nico made The End one of her signature songs, always introducing it as “Jim Morrison’s favorite song”. He was her muse after all.
Because of her beauty, Christa Paffgen was always a muse to others. All her life, people tried to mold her to fit their fantasies. Her mother sewed her dresses so she could look pretty in school. She was discovered by a photographer who gave her the name of his dead lover, Nico. Frederico Fellini, Andrew Oldham, Andy Warhol, all tried to make her a movie star or a pop star or a ‘superstar’. When she went in to record her first full solo album Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne and Tim Hardin lined up to write songs for her. The wistfull record, bathed in woodwinds and strings, is a thing of beauty. She hated it. Nico did not want to be a muse. She hated beauty – she saw it as a liability. Who could blame her? The legend goes that after the war, she witnessed the execution of the American GI who had raped her, and the experience turned her forever. It’s little wonder then that she believed being a woman, and especially a beautiful one, was a weakness. “You know, Jimmy” she mused “women really are inferior.” So, purposefully and bravely, she destroyed the beautiful image that made her famous. She henna’d her hair, wore only black, made the records she wanted – records about desolation -and she poisoned herself. She kept the man’s name she had been given. There’s something heroic in the choices she made. Rejecting the pretty image instead of riding it to the top, turning away from powerful lovers, away from the safe path. Not many have the courage to shed the pretty face – the image approved and enforced by society – and become as strung out, ugly, antisocial, and asexual as it takes to feed their own muse.
Ari is Nico’s illegitimate son with actor Alain Delon. Delon never acknowledged the child. Nico was not much of a mother, reportedly dropping acid while pregnant and locking Ari in a closet when he cried. Ari was raised mostly by Delon’s mother. As he grew up, he did develop a closer relationship with his mother. As James Young recalls in his memoir Nico: The End, “A truly loving son understands (and shares) his mother’s needs” – i.e. they bonded with heroin.
I’ve also included a bonus track that I’ve just discovered. This is Strip-Tease, written by Serge Gainsbourg, the title track of a movie in which Nico appeared. It was recorded in 1963, which means it predates I’m Not Sayin’ and The Last Mile by two years, making it Nico’s earliest known recording. The video features some rare pictures from Nico’s modeling days, including several in which she sports Jean Seberg-like short hair.
All Tomorrow’s Parties, The Velvet Underground & Nico, 1967
The old saying goes: No one bought the Velvets’ albums, but all those who did started their own bands. What we know for sure is that there’s a lot of bands who’ve built careers out of trying to sound like the Velvet Underground.
This is a clip illustrating ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ with a not-inappropriate fashion show. Since there isn’t any good footage of their famous performances, this does well enough.
This is Nico’s most difiniteve song, the big one, the one she’s known for. She absolutely hated having to perform her old hits, and answering endless questions about Andy and his Factory. She was mightily frustrated that no one cared about her solo albums or film work. But she new that those songs were her bread and butter, so she continued faithfully performing them. This is a clip, probably from the late seventies or early eighties, showing the singer wild-eyed and drug ravaged but still as strong as ever.
‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ has been covered many times. This is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ attempt, from “Kicking Against the Pricks” 1986.
Cease to know or to tell
Or to see or to be your own
Cease to know or to tell
Or to see or to be your own
Have someone else’s will as your own
Have someone else’s will as your own
You are beautiful and you are alone
You are beautiful and you are alone
Often the ardorless and plain
Reward your grace
Often the ardorless and plain
Reward your grace
Confuse your hunger capture the fake
Confuse your hunger capture the fake
Banish the faceless reward your grace
Banish the faceless reward your grace
Nico is a muse of purple prose. She’s been called an ice queen, a moon goddess, an earth mother, the foghorn on the Bismarck, and in Warhol’s words “An IMB computer with a Garbo accent”. She was an icon who hated and rejected stardom. Her story is one long willfull downward spiral.
She was born Christa Paffgen in Cologne, Germany in 1938. She moved to Paris while still in her teens, where she became a successful model. During this time she took the name Nico. She was cast in “La Dolce Vita”. Fellini was struck by her beauty and charisma and wanted to expand her role. But Nico did not wish to work the extra hours. She appears in the movie as a guest at a party in one scene. She came to London in the 60′s. She was Pop Girl of 66. Rolling Stones impresario Andrew Loog Oldham attempted to do for her what he had done for Marianne Faithfull and make her a wistfull blonde folk star. But Nico proved less malleable than Faithfull had been. She hated publicity and fled to New York. She came to the Factory. Andy Warhol ‘volunteered’ her to sing with the Velvet Underground in return for his fame and financial support. Her prescense caused resentment and jealousy within the group. She left. She started writing her own songs, learned to play harmonium, henna’d her hair and fell away from the spotlight. She made a series of solo albums. She became a heroin addict. The world forgot her name. She toured and recorded sporadically to support her addiction. She kicked the habit only to die in 1988 from a concussion. She is my hero.
She hated interviews, she hated acting, she hated to be photographed, she hated performing, she hated attention and she hated being a star.
You can learn more … watch the documentary “NicoIcon” and read James Young’s “Nico: the End”.
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