French 79
Fred Nevché - New York 1966 (English translation)
[Verse 1]
It's 8pm
We're in New York, in 1966, and I think I'm gonna throw up
The light of the photographers' flashes, the videos projected everywhere on the walls
These same walls, some of which covered with aluminium are reflecting the lights and reinforce the dazzling
The jewelry, the strass, the glitter, the tinkling glasses, the teeth that light up, the dilating pupils
The hearts that we can almost hear beating increasingly harder in unison
That's maybe this harmony, this chemistry that Andy wants to create by putting us there, altogether
Sometimes he's even reminding me of the old neighbors in my neighborhood when they were meticulously making the ramen
Each ingredient, each spice, the heat, the cooking time, to each thing its own importance
It's what I'm feeling each time I'm going to the Factory as if we were all ingredients, thoroughly chosen by Andy, to create his own stew
Tongiht, it's the first time we're playing
Well, for real
And fuck how it's not a geek to see such an audience, it's fucking my stomach up
It's tonight that Lewis dies, tonight that Lou becomes

[Verse 2]
Baby comes to greet me
She's with Sugar, and both of them are stunning
We see nowhere else girls like that, girls that came from all over the country, arrived here by stop or by bus
They gave birth to themselves on the way, leaving the Kansas as Jo
Arriving at the Factory as Dolly, plucked eyebrows, shaved legs, "him" has become "her"
I barely hear what they're telling me in the midst of the buzzing of the crowd and the music that seems to bounce on the bodies
Life, it's weird sometimes, maybe it's what we call destiny
I don't know anything about it but what I know, is that I was made to be here tonight amongst these people in this city at this time
Everything in me felt hemmed in before, and was only waiting to bloom here, now
It's true that for a little Jewish boy of Brooklyn, I seemed more destined to become accountant like my father or lawyer like my uncle Abel
Everything but Lou, of the Velvet Underground
But there's everyhing at the Factory, young ones, old ones, women, men
And everything in between, rich people, poor people, junkies, nuts people, we're all here, and nobody really exists anymore
We're like a magma, an energy, a new world, where the individual disappears behind the collective
Andy says that one day, everybody will have their own moment of fame
I don't know if it's true, I don't even know if that's what we wish, I feel like if we're here, it's mostly to disappear
Not disappearing like a negative or definitive thing, more like relieving ourselves from the echo, forgetting about the past, the family, the problems and the anxieties, and being able to reinvent ourselves
Here, we're not Jack, Annie or Lewis
Here we're Ultraviolet, Candy Darling, Hollywood Lound
Here we shape who we want to be, man or woman, human or more than that
Me, I always felt too hemmed in the costume of Lewis Allan Reed, to become Lou of the Velvet Undergound, that's why I was born for and tonight, it's the liberation
Sterling, Jo et Mo wave to me
It's time, I feel the adrenaline rising, my pulse speeds up, I can almost hear it beating in my eardrums like a...