


He suggested that she reverse this - and she did, with striking results. A beautiful nightmare welcoming death’s release.Īs mentioned in the biography Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon, Virgin Books by Richard Witts 1993) Ornette Coleman told Nico that the normal way to approach a keyboard was to play the chords with the left hand in the lower register and the melody higher up with the right hand. Desertshore is Nico’s supernatural requiem to pain and solitude through the drone of her harmonium and the sweetness or dissonance of John Cale’s viola and piano.

This sentiment resonated and I decided to get to know the album better. The album is sequenced in order of allied keys, slipping song by song to the relative minor – a classical song cycle. One day, I was thinking of Nico and read a quote describing Desertshore as her wake music written 20 years before her death. It is an illusion – a mirage – a desert has no shore. Janitor of Lunacy is a forceful and powerful opener striking in its beauty and simplicity. La combinazione fra lharmonium ecclesiastico di Nico e lorgano minimalista di Cale in questo brano rappresenta la forma strumentale piu essenziale della sua liederistica. It has remained one of Nico's best-loved songs.Desertshore is Nico’s otherworldly masterpiece. Fin da Janitor Of Lunacy il tono del disco si presenta piu solenne e il registro di Nico, piu fermo e sicuro, assume inflessioni piu profetiche. At the same time, however, the accusations of gothic gloom which now draped Nico like a long black skirt are readily extinguished by the loveliest of melodies, and though "Janitor of Lunacy" scared the bosses at Capital Radio, it won the hearts of the station's listeners. Listen to Janitor Of Lunacy (Live At The Library Theatre Manchester) on Spotify. If an open crypt could sing, this is what it would sound like.

Janitor of lunacy Identify my destiny Revive the living dream Forgive their begging scream. Tolerate my jealousy Recognize the desperate need. Janitor of tyranny Testify my vanity Mortalize my memory Deceive the Devils deed. It was not the most conventional of relationships, however, and the song follows suit - Nico herself regarded it as akin to a poem on a tombstone, an intention which is certainly captured by the blast with which the song opens, a boiling harmonium giving way to an almost Valkyrian and demandingly protracted opening syllable. Janitor of lunacy Paralyze my infancy Petrify the empty cradle Bring hope to them and me. The song was written about Brian Jones, with whom Nico enjoyed an affair during the mid-'60s. According to legend, the station's upper echelons were so outraged that Clarke was never invited back. And nothing quite compares to the creepy 'Le Petit Chevalier', a nursery rhyme sung by Nicos eight-year-old son Ari. He used the opportunity to air some of his own favorite, but seldom-heard, records, including "Janitor of Lunacy" from Nico's third album, Desertshore. On opener 'Janitor of Lunacy' a slight strain in her voice adds urgency, while the German lyrics of 'Abscheid' slice through Cales viola like an icicle puncturing a snowdrift. Around 1978, poet John Cooper Clarke was invited to appear as guest DJ on London's Capital Radio's nightly rock show.
