"John Cale did a really interesting version of Heartbreak Hotel, in a minor key. Its incredibly suicidal. I mean you could never believe that that song could turn out to be such a downer as that... Nico did Deutschland Über Alles, which was very good... and she did The End by The Doors, which is the one they put on the album... Nico doing The End was so chilling, it really was. It was incredible. She invests it with so many levels of meaning I didnt hear in the Doors one. She underplays it... theres just the harmonium, me playing synthesizer— almost doubling the harmonium part— and her singing... which is just like a rich, kind of non-specific miasma of sound..."
Christa Päffgen, known by her stage name Nico, was a German singer, songwriter, actress and model.
"With every moon it is as though youre getting closer to your soul And then you go alone and with no fear Then you will know That it was like this before we had to go And you will find that you were blind Until you saw these lights glowing in your nights."
Nico"He came your way And when he had to go There were roses growing in the snow Silently youll go to the shadow of your soul And you know that it was like this before we had to go You will never see these lights Glowing in your nights Until you feel this way."
Nico"Cease to know or to tellOr to see or to be your ownHave someone elses will as your ownHave someone elses will as your own."
Nico"Of course, its her own sexuality that shes denying", he continued. Did I know that shed been raped as a teenager in Berlin? I didnt. Nico was working as a temp for the U.S. Air Force. A black American Sergeant had raped not only her, but other girls under his employ. Shed kept quiet about it, but he was found out and court-marshalled. She had to testify for the prosecution at his trial. He was sentenced to death and shot. Nico was 15. "Not only does she have to carry the horror of the rape but the secret guilt of somehow being complicit, by her testimony, in his execution. Sex for Nico....is irrevocably associated with punishment."
Nico"You are beautiful and you are alone."
Nico"I would say the time has not yet come. I rebel against the present, whenever it is, because I have not seen any change, other than oppositions grow stronger. I would be a communist if it was more anarchist. Otherwise, I see only everything as an absurdity, so I can laugh and cry. I have lived in a continuation, from birth and growing towards death in a chain that cannot end. I dont see this decade then that decade. The same things happen in different guises. I am bohemian but at one time you would call me a hippie or a punk. I remain a bohemian whatever you call me. So maybe I am locked in the fifties. But I have never desired to grow up from my world as a child, which is when things are most clear and utopian. They are clear because you are at the center and you see all around you. When you get older you lose your sight … I lost something of my childishness when people around me start dying. Four of my family died within a year."
Nico