Jane Bogaert presents … Nico: 10 talking points

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1. No one
“No one loved Nico and Nico loved no one . . . she was just alone . . . she couldn’t bear for anyone to touch her . . . Nico had sex with no one.” — Carlos de Maldonaldo-Bostock

‘In the documentary Nico Icon, friends and relatives of the singer, model and actress Nico describe her as “crazy,” “terrifying,” “a freak,” “a junkie” and “desperate.” But they also call her a “dreaming,” “boundless” “pure beauty” and “goddess.” Which raises the questions: Just who was Nico? And, in the 49 years she lived, did anybody really know her?

‘Born Christa Paffgen, Nico appeared in such films as Federico Fellini’s Dolce Vita in 1960 and Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls in 1966. She recorded a handful of spooky and singular solo albums that are as revered today as they were pitifully unheard and sidelined in her time. She was romantically — and, in most cases, creatively — involved with some of the late 20th century’s most important artistic figures: Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Alain Delon, Tim Buckley, Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen, Brian Jones, Iggy Pop, and Jeanne Moreau among others. But she remains best known for singing in the influential rock group the Velvet Underground at the behest of Warhol. It wasn’t her voice that got her the job. It was her presence: tall, icy, Teutonic and beautiful. But her singing — deep, mechanical and heavily accented with long-drawn-out consonants — soon grew as striking as her looks.

‘Apparently Nico was like the Kelippot, empty human shells in cabalistic mythology. Many people in the documentary say there was nothing beneath her surface: no love, no interests, no cares. There was only a wish to annihilate the one thing that attracted everyone to her: her beauty. And that she succeeded in doing, with years of heroin addiction and self-abuse.

‘”I have no limits,” she says in an interview in the movie, referring not just to her future but to her changeable past. She spent the half-century she lived trying not to be known, fabricating her background and making wildly contradictory statements to interviewers and friends — that is, when she talked at all. By simply existing as a silent German beauty, Nico became a blank screen for those around her, allowing them to project their own images onto her emptiness.’ — Neil Strauss, NYT

 

2. 1972
“Nico spoke no language — not articulately, at least.” — Carlos de Maldonaldo-Bostock

Nico interview 1972

destroymichael: Would anyone happen to know what she is saying in english?
Luna2548: she explains how she met lou and J.cale, that she was really impressed and it was the most beautiful day of her life, that she met andy at castel where she went dancing and then i don’t really understand what she means by marquis de sade dances, perverted dances she says !? lol Then she is speaking about la cicatrice intérieur… Before speaking about the movie, the journalist tell her that apart from the vu album, c.girls and the two other albums, she didn’t record anything else so he ask her if she intented to release another album and she answers you think it isn’t enough? Also, she says she would like to play at the opera one day, that when she makes music she thinks about theatre and cinema and she thinks her music is very visual. it’s not a very clear interview, but not only because of Nico, she speaks french very well…sorry for my english…
dragnpop: when she speaks of Marquis de Sade dances and perverted dances, she referrs to Gerard Malanga, who was performing something known as the “whip dance” – a dance with a whip – during Andy Warhol’s EPI – exploding plastic inevitable.
esquibelle: I idolized Nico for years as a goddess, adored her voice and unique songs. Then I met her, to do an interview for a music paper, and was sorely disappointed! She was nothing like I’d imagined! She was not too nice, bumming money for drugs, food, etc. from fans. Brown teeth, strung out, condescending and surly. She mocked her fans. She was a tragic figure, struggling with regrets, because she knew she could have done so more with her life.
girlsdocry: I would say he’s asking questions expecting a precise answer, which she never gives, such as in the end. He also implies that she is lazy and have done nothing interesting lately. But you have a point : he is very rude and unrespectful, especially when he assumes she hasn’t done anything since she left the VU. If I was her, I would have reacted more violently, but she just seem to be above all that, like a queen talking to an annoying servant.
tooboredforwords: she sounds like a man no offence ppl
Rosarie0: How suitable French is for her. It’s all so smooth. She’s telling him to get fuc–d, so smoothly.
kutkrap: This guy speaks to her like she’s some kind of retard or a kid on a tv show, it’s really weird..reallt rude, i’d say. But she is luminous…

 

3. Songstress
“Heroin does make you a colder and a meaner person . . . not so much Nico because she had always been different.” — Lutz Ulbrich

‘Chelsea Girls’ live in the Chelsea Hotel

‘I’m Not Saying’

‘Winter Song’

‘Heroes’ live

‘These Days’

‘All That is My Own’

‘Afraid’ live

‘My Heart is Empty’ live

’60/40′ live

‘Le Petite Chevalier’

‘My Funny Valentine’

 

4. Superstar & actress
“Nico had no inner life, or what inner life she did have was kept strictly inner . . . there was nothing to talk to Nico about because she had no interests.” — Viva

Nico in Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’

Between 1970 and 1979, Nico made about seven films with French director Philippe Garrel. She met Garrel in 1969 and contributed the song “The Falconer” to his film, Le Lit de la Vierge. Soon after, she was living with Garrel and became a central figure in his cinematic and personal circles. Nico’s first acting appearance with Garrel occurred in his 1972 film, La Cicatrice Intérieure. Nico also supplied the music for this film and collaborated closely with the director. She also appeared in the Garrel films Anathor (1972); the silent Jean Seberg biopic, Les Hautes Solitudes, released in 1974; Un onge passe (1975); Le Berceau de cristal (1976), starring Pierre Clementi, Nico and Anita Pallenberg; and Voyage au jardin des morts (1978). His 1991 film J’entends Plus la Guitare is dedicated to Nico. — Wikipedia

‘La Cicatrice Intérieure’ (trailer)

‘Le Lit de la vierge’ (clip)

Andy Warhol: ‘[Nico] called us from a Mexican restaurant and we went right over to meet her. She was sitting at a table with a pitcher in front of her, dipping her long beautiful fingers into the sangria, lifting out slices of wine-soaked oranges. When she saw us, she tilted her head to the side and brushed her hair back with her other hand and said very slowly, ‘I only like the fooood that flooooats in the wiiine.’

‘During dinner, Nico told us that she’d been on TV in England in a rock show called Ready, Steady, Go! and right there she pulled a demo 45 rpm out of her bag of a song called I’ll Keep It with Mine that had been written for her, she said, by Bob Dylan, who’d been over there touring. (It was one of a few pressings that had Dylan playing the piano on it, and eventually Judy Collins recorded it.) Nico said that Al Grossman [Dylan’s manager] had heard it and told her that if she came to the United States, he’d manage her. When she said that, it didn’t sound too promising, because we’d heard Edie telling us so much that she was ‘under contract’ to Grossman and nothing much seem to be happening for her… We were still seeing Edie, but we weren’t showing her films anymore…

‘Nico had cut a record called I’m Not Sayin’ in London (Andrew Oldham, the Stones’ producer had produced it), and she’d also been in La Dolce Vita. She had a young son – we’d heard rumors that the father was Alain Delon and Paul [Morrissey] asked her about that immediately because Delon was one of his favorite actors, and Nico said yes, that it was true and that the boy was in Europe with Alain’s mother. The minute we left the restaurant Paul said that we should use Nico in the movies and find a rock group to play for her. He was raving that she was ‘the most beautiful creature that ever lived’.’

Nico in Warhol’s ‘I, A Man’

Nico in Warhol’s ‘Chelsea Girls’

Nico discusses Andy Warhol

Nico’s complete filmography

 

5. Jim Morrison
“I like my relations to be physical and of the psyche. We hit each other because we were drunk and we enjoyed the sensation. We made love in a gentle way, do you know? I thought of Jim Morrison as my brother, so we would grow together. We still do, because he is my soul brother. We exchanged blood. I carry his blood inside me. When he died, and I told people that he wasn’t dead, this was my meaning.” — Nico

Nico discusses Jim Morrison

Nico sings Morrison’s ‘The End’

 

6. John Cale *
“Being a living legend is such a precarious livelihood. It’s like being a bar of soap in a shower which doesn’t have any water in it.” — John Cale

… covers Nico’s ‘Frozen Warnings’

‘Backstage at the Roundhouse, Nico sits alone on a flight of wooden steps that lead up to the stage. A black velvet cape over her shoulders, one leg up and the other extended, her chin resting on her hand resting on her knee. Under empty beams and open blue lights on Sunday night. Waiting until it is time.

‘John Cale left the Velvet Underground two and a half years ago. Nico left before he did. Until a week ago, the only way to hear these people together was on the first Velvet Underground album. Separately, John is also on the second and his own album, Vintage Violence. Nico has made three albums, Chelsea Girls, The Marble Index, and the latest, Desertshore. And then, last week, a small announcement in a hip London magazine said: “John Cale – Nico, Roundhouse, Sunday.”

‘Nico goes on stage first, before a large and noisy crowd packed in to see Pink Floyd, who will follow. “I don’t know what mood you’re in”, Nico says to the audience in her unreproducible voice. “I suppose you’re in a very peace-loving mood.” She begins with “Janitor of Lunacy” from her new album, pumping away steadily, her legs in high leather boots on the harmonium pedal, her shoulder bag hanging from her chair. John Cale plays viola in the background then switches to piano. The combination of her voice, syllables stretched to madness and dropped, and the cavernous repetition of the harmonium slow the Roundhouse crowd down. The stage goes all black except for soft purple and green spots high above her head. The light show flickers down to a single picture, all grainy and glowing. The people stop talking. A great hall becomes a mediaeval cathedral. “I’m glad you like it,” Nico says, after some applause. “If I had a back-up group now, I would do the old songs like ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ and ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’. I don’t think I would do ‘Femme Fatale’. “I haven’t that much of a sense of humor. Back then it was all right. It was a part I was playing. My hair was blonde and I…” She stops and looks at the audience. “It has changed. Now. I don’t know what part I’m playing.”.’ — Rolling Stone, 1971

*Nico’s second album The Marble Index (1969) was arranged by John Cale. He produced her third and fourth albums, Desertshore (1970) and The End (1974). On Desertshore, Cale plays most of the instruments. Nico wrote the music, sang, and played the harmonium. On The End, Cale plays a wide range of instruments including xylophone, synthesizer, acoustic guitar, and electric piano. Cale and Nico reunited in 1985 when he produced her final studio album Camera Obscura.

 

7. Death
“For one whose life was bedecked with musty glamour, Nico died an absurdly ungracious death. No one knew who she was — just another junkie looking for drugs in the sun.” — Pat Gilbert

‘On 18 July 1988, she went for a bike-ride on the isle of Ibiza.  She was visiting again, a bike rider of a healthy-living woman, almost clean of her narcotic past. People found her unconscious by the side of her bike, and took her to the Cannes Nisto Hospital. She was incorrectly diagnosed as suffering from exposure, and she died the next day. X-rays later revealed she had suffered a minor heart attack while riding her bike, fallen and struck her head, causing a severe cerebral hemorrhage that led to her death. Not the thing we expected from the woman who always was living in places the sun couldn’t reach.  She remained in fact where she was, her whole life a mystery! Her ashes were buried in Berlin, in a small cemetery in the Grunewald Forest, at the edge of the Wannsee, in to her mother’s grave, Margarete Päffgen (1910-1970) on 16 August 1988, with a few friends playing a song from Desertshore on a cassette recorder …’ — from The Nico Website

 

8. Fashion model (1952 – 1967)
“After leaving school at 13, Nico started selling lingerie and soon was spotted by fashion people. She later moved to Paris and worked for Vogue, Tempo, Vie Nuove, Mascotte Spettacolo, Camera, ELLE, and other fashion magazines until the mid 1960s.” — mog.com

See many more Nico fashion modeling photos here

 

9. Ari (Christian Aaron Boulogne)
“My mother died of too much sun.” — Ari

‘In 1962, Christian Aaron Boulogne – Ari was his nickname – was born from a short-lasted relationship between Nico and French actor Alain Delon, who denied paternity for many years. Maternal responsibility wasn’t Nico’s strong suit. She supposedly took LSD while pregnant (can you imagine the unborn child hallucinating in the womb?) and dragged the child with her in her nomadic bohemian lifestyle. His infancy was spent in New York with his mother, in Andy Warhol’s Factory, as a mascot for the Velvet Underground. At the age of four he emptied the drinking glasses of Bob Dylan, John Cale and Paul Morrissey, and sucked on amphetamine pills, mistaking them for candy. Ari became Warhol’s youngest star when he appeared with his Nico in the film ‘The Chelsea Girls’ in 1966.

‘When Alain Delon’s mother, Edith Boulogne, saw Ari’s photograph in a French newspaper, she was instantly convinced it was her son’s child. Edith Boulogne [Alain Delon’s mother]: ‘I said to myself, that’s my son’s child. We went to see her [Nico], her and the baby. The kid was about two years old. He came running into my husband’s arms. We were so moved. I saw my own son in him. And I truly believed that my son would accept him… When he heard about it two years after we had taken the baby, he had his agent tell me that I had to choose between the baby and my son. My husband said, ‘Your son can feed himself, but Ari can’t raise himself.’ So we kept him. Think about it, he was so little. Before we took him, she [Nico] dragged him around everywhere. He ate nothing but french fries, in train stations, hotels, airports. They lived like bohemians. She came to see him once in three years. She brought him something from America. Guess what? An orange. My husband and I looked at each other, speechless. We took the orange and thought, she’s really not like other people… but I still liked her. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen’.

‘Delon’s mother adopted the child, giving him his last name: ‘Boulogne’. At the age of 17, Ari ran off from his adoptive parents, joined Nico and became a heroin addict – turned on to the drug by mother. After Nico died in 1988, Ari spent his much of his life in and out of detoxication clinics and psychiatric hospitals. In 2001, at the age of 38, living in Paris, he fathered a son and wrote a book about his relationship with his mother called “L’Amour N’Oublie Jamais” (Love Never Forgets).”‘ — Valter, Documents

 

10. The Velvet Underground
“And with the Velvets come the blonde, bland, beautiful Nico, another cooler Dietrich for another cooler generation.” — from the linernotes of The Velvet Underground and Nico

… rehearsing

‘Femme Fatale’ (live)

‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ (live)

‘Femme Fatale’ and ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ are two songs that are very identified with you. How did it come out that those songs were performed by you ? I mean listening to that first LP I imagine that ‘Venus in Furs’ or ‘Run Run Run’ could well have been performed by you. How did you, did you have an affin … did you have a good feeling for those songs, or did Lou say “Look, these are for you, Nico.”, how did it come about the Velvet new songs ?
We just agreed upon them.
They just seemed right ?
Yes it seemed right. We never thought, about, you know analyzing every little thing.
Alright.
Er, it just happened, and, or it didn’t, because, three songs is all I sang in that group.
It’s remarkable, isn’t it ?
Maybe for, except for improvisations.
Were the live performances that you were involved in different than the ones that were recorded on that LP ? Was that the sound of the Velvets made live or was it …
No, there was, there was more improvisation.
Mm. And …
There was not only noise, but er, the kind of music you can hear when, when it’s storm, a storm outside, or that you can hear in, in elementary violence like it.
Andy Warhol’s name is on the cover as producing that record.
I mean Moe was the best drummer ever. I just heard her on that song at the hotel that we played before.
Alright.
She had the best drums sound.
She’s actually done a good LP of her own, too, sort of a garage record, she plays all the instruments, in recent times. It’s really good. ‘Louie Louie’ and all these old rock songs.
I don’t know that record. I saw her three summers ago in Los Angeles and she was married to this woodcutter, that’s how he looked like. And she had grown her hair, and she didn’t look like a boy anymore.
Right, yeah, ’cause some of the cover photos of those LPs were pretty deceptive, weren’t they, Moe Tucker, and er …
And she’s not a good singer. She’s only good on that one song ‘When you close the door’ .
Mm. Yeah, well, she’s rough, but she’s good. Well, er …
The tapes she gave me weren’t so good, that’s what I mean.
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p.s. Hey. Today Jane Bogaert, a member of the blog’s silent majority readership, has generously gifted us with this beautiful, concisely built post about one of music’s more enigmatic royals, the late great Nico. Take its pleasures to heart, and if you can spare a word for our guest-host, who I think I can safely assume will be looking in today, that would be cool. Thanks a ton, Jane. ** Dominik, Hey, D! I used to try to write fan fiction, or incorporate fan fiction-style in my novels, and I guess I did in ‘Guide’ in a way, but it’s a tough form, I think. More difficult to pull of than I had imagined, or at least more difficult if you need the writing you read to not be godawful. My trip was good, productive. Nice to get out of Paris. The train was crowded, but everyone seemed pretty civilised, so I think escaped without infection, although I guess I’ll find out, ha ha. Cool. How was your day, I mean today, or, well, yesterday too? I like your love. It’s very hunky. Take some love like this. ** Ferdinand, Hey. Oh, yeah, I don’t think I shared that here. Everyone, Kindly Ferdinand reminds me that I haven’t shared this just published piece in/on The Face about me and Diarmuid Hester called ‘Cult author Dennis Cooper on meth, the death of NYC and Miley Cyrus’. If you want to solve the mystery of that headline, there’s where. Thanks, man. ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha, you snuck in a reference to your favorite film. I … think my health survived the train rides, or else I will be (unpleasantly) surprised if it didn’t. ** Misanthrope, Hi. Welcome ‘home’. Next year you should work in a haunt or haunted maze as a scary but strangely jovial zombie. I think you would really blossom. All evidence is that masks help, but they’re not perfect, and it’s the mask non-users in private locations who are the culprits, but … yeah, more restrictions are in all of our immediate futures, I fear. ** _Black_Acrylic, It is a charismatic form. That’s a good adjective for it. I’ll go see you transform Maggie Broon even if I don’t know what she’s being transformed from. Or maybe I’ll do a little research on her first. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T! Surprise! Yeah, I was trawling around in the archives, and there it was screaming at me for immortality. Me too, re: the form. It’s a toughie, strangely. It seems like it shouldn’t be. I’m good. Coping with the quarantine, getting stuff done as best I can, feeling all right. You? What’s the latest? Are you working on anything? ** Steve Erickson, Yeah, Hanson kind of helped pioneer self-releasing records successfully, or somewhat successfully at least. Not a huge surprise about their politics, and I guess the drummer is a COVID truther, but at least they didn’t endorse you-know-who unless I missed something. ** Okay. You can luxuriate in the many facets of Nico all day today if you like. See you tomorrow.