Fear Is A Man's Best Friend

John Cale
Album: John Cale And Band Live
Song: Waiting For My Man

Right.  Imagine that you're a musician and that you want to portray an intense emotion.  Say, fear.  How do you go about it?  Here's Lily Allen's take.  I like it.  It's pretty.  Very nice melody.  Doesn't convey fear to me however.  Time for Drake to take a shot.  Ummmm.  Yeah.  Typical shitty R&B inflected hip hop.  This makes me fear for the music industry, but that's about it.  Last chance: Jazmine Sullivan.  Well...okay.  Don't hate it.  Damned by faint praise.  And yeah, I get it, you're scared about a bunch of stuff.  Deep.

In my opinion John Cale is the reason why Velvet Underground continues to influence generation after generation of musicians.  Lou Reed may have been the leader of the band, but Cale was its beating heart.  Cale came to New York from Wales in the 60s and immediately immersed himself in the avant garde art music scene, performing not only with Velvet Underground but also with the classical who's who.  A classically trained violist, he is also an adept pianist and guitarist and a hell of a songwriter in his own right.

His solo recordings are very spotty.  The first albums I heard were studio recordings, and while they were at times interesting from a musical standpoint I found them too sanitized and over produced.  But then on a whim I purchased a cassette tape of a live performance from the early 80s and I was bowled over.  Cale is able to connect to the emotional core of his music as well as any contemporary artist I know.  At its best his music is dark, raw, and brutally honest.

So how should an artist convey, say, fear?  Fear isn't a pretty emotion: Fear Is A Man's Best Friend.  Neither is heartbreak: Heartbreak Hotel.  (One of my favorite covers ever.)  And what would it feel like, really feel like, to wait for your dealer to get your next fix?  Probably something like this: