Set Me Free (manually)

by Will Rigby

Count me among those who consider John Cale's post–Velvet Underground work superior overall to that of Lou Reed. Not to belittle "Dirty Boulevard" or "Waves of Fear" or "Kicks" or all the other LR songs I love (and I can't say I've gone ga-ga over a JC album in years), but Cale's albums from the '70s find their way onto my speakers more often. There is an unhinged side to him that screams a lot, and another that composes formal music; those are not the ones we're featuring today. He can write (or in some of the instances here, sing) very beautiful songs/melodies.

A little-known track stands out, if that can be said of something that is purposefully obscured. On Hobo Sapiens, his 2003 album that was his first since 1996, the song "Set Me Free" is a hidden track that is before track 1. To hear it you have to hold down the rewind button until it reaches the beginning of the song. John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants explained to me (in 1995) the possibility of a CD having a track in this location because of the way they are formatted, and that playback machines are unable to read them for no special reason other than simplicity. [For a more technical explanation you'll have to look elsewhere.] I suspect that TMBG used this trick too, but I don't know their albums.

The song is accessible musically, however, in a way that most of the album it's technically inaccessible on is not. His current music is a bit angular and machine-driven for my taste (although I must confess that I haven't heard his latest studio recording Black Acetate or his recent live album Circus Live), but he still has some pop sensibility left. Or perhaps it's an old song he's only gotten around to recording.

"Set Me Free" mp3
by John Cale, 2003.
available on Hobo Sapiens

"Empty Bottles" mp3
by John Cale, 1972.
available on Le Bataclan '72

"Set Me Free" compares well to "Empty Bottles," a song he wrote in the early '70s but perversely never recorded; instead, he gave it to Jennifer Warnes (who then went by just her first name) and produced her single of it, which to date I have been unable to find or hear. The only known version of John Cale performing "Empty Bottles" is on the album Le Bataclan '72 (2004), a nonprofessional recording of a spur-of-the-moment reunion of Cale, Reed, and Nico at a 1972 art gallery opening in France. What a shame he didn't record the song properly at the time. [I heartily recommend the fansite Fear Is a Man's Best Friend for more information on John Cale.]

"Sylvia Said" was a non-LP B-side to a 45 of "The Man Who Couldn't Afford to Orgy" from Fear that finally appeared on album on The Island Years in 1996, another beautiful song not generally available before the age of ubiquitous CD rereleases/bonus tracks/anthologies (a description that also applies to "Burned Out Affair," an outtake from Paris 1919 that wasn't released for 33 years!). "Bamboo Floor" is an outtake from Slow Dazzle.

"Sylvia Said" mp3
by John Cale, 1974.
available on The Island Years

"Bamboo Floor" mp3
by John Cale, 1975.
available on The Island Years

"Burned Out Affair" mp3
by John Cale, 1973.
available on Paris 1919

Lou Reed and John Cale in the holiday spirit, 1976.
detail of photo by Kate Simon from the Gillian McCain/Jim Marshall collection.


"Frozen Warnings" is a performance of a Nico song from The Marble Index (which Cale produced and improvised most of the musical accompaniment on) that appears at the end of the documentary Nico/Icon, a humble documentary that is worth watching just to see Nico's grandmother humming along with the first VU album.

"Frozen Warnings" mp3
by John Cale, 1995.
from Nico Icon DVD




Cale has recorded "Hallelujah," Leonard Cohen's most well-known/recorded song, more than once. His studio recording originally appeared on the Cohen tribute album I'm Your Fan, and has also been featured on the soundtrack of several movies. This version appears over a wordless scene in Shrek but not on the soundtrack album. There is also a solo piano version on his fine live album Fragments of a Rainy Season. "You Know More Than I Know" is an outtake from Fragments that appeared on a bonus EP and a label compilation.




"Hallelujah" mp3
by John Cale, 1991.
available on I'm Your Fan

"You Know More Than I Know" mp3
by John Cale, 1992.
available on Medium Rare

Fun bonus: In 1963 JC appeared on the TV show I've Got a Secret, in which a panel tried to guess what the guest's secret was. In Cale's case the secret was that he had participated in a marathon performance of Erik Satie's Vexations, in which a series of pianists play a minute-or-so piece 840 times in succession. In the age of YouTube this has become available to us to watch, tittering audience and all.



"Vexations" (Satie) mp3
by John Cale, 1963.
from I've Got A Secret TV Show