Listening to the Velvet Underground today and starting to find that their music, their themes and lyrics jives with how Campbell describes the alchemists from the 12th century. The philosopher’s stone represents a revelation, the ultimate result of some long involved process, some goal which could not simply be plucked from a tree, but instead must itself be conjured. And the Underground’s music is the result of the same kind of process. Ok, let me explain.

So today I am listening to the Velvet Underground again, their seeming obsession with seediness and discord had at times annoyed me in the past but I had a feeling that today things were going to make more sense. Last night while reading Campbell’s chapter on alchemy something shifted in my mind. Something clicked, a stone slipped into place and a new lens came to rest before my eyes. I can now see the Underground’s journey to the fringe for what it is, a desire to shake off the ruthless narrative of conventional society and immerse themselves directly in the flow of existence, where the ancient forms are more accessible, where the cosmic wind can whisper unfiltered into their ears.

As a non-artist and burgeoning JimJim I was becoming more and more dismissive of this kind of artistic slumming, thinking it no more than posing, an excuse to slough off responsibility, a weak surrender in the response to the insidious challenges of modern life. And though posers many of them may be, the VU were originals.

So, the song “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, was a song I guess I never really understood before. I always thought it was a straight forward song about a hanger-on at Warhol’s factory who lost their true nature in their obsession with partying and clothes. Or something like that. Something vaguely derogatory. But now “I am beginning to see the light”, and I see that I was wrong. “All tomorrow’s parties” refers to the rest of your life, and the choice you are going to make about what to wear is actually the choice about what you are going to be for the rest of your life. The lyric bypasses the argument about whether or not we are wearing costumes, and instead tells a story about a girl who is making the choice. The song is incredibly eerie in that context. As on many of the other songs on the album Reed’s guitar evokes some perverse middle eastern ceremony. My mind’s eye brings up an image of a girl before a metaphysical mirror and wardrobe. The abyss itself just outside of the light splayed by her vanity.

As a song, amazing and utterly unique. Complete genius.

“A hand me down dress, from who knows where.” perfectly describes the situation we still find ourselves in, heirs to an old trunk of once splendid, loose fitting costumes and clothes.