Talk:Sister Ray (song)

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Does anyone have a citation for this quotation? Any notion?

"'Sister Ray' was done as a joke- no, not as a joke, but it has eight characters in it and this guy gets killed and nobody does anything. It was built around this story that I wrote about this scene of total debauchery and decay. I like to think of 'Sister Ray' as a transvestite smack dealer. The situation is a bunch of drag queens taking some sailors home with them, shooting up on smack and having this orgy when the police appear."

Wowbobwow12 14:35, 16 May 2006.

Yeah, a few interviews with Lou. I believe there's a link on the White Light/White Heat page. It's somewhere out there. Trust me. I am a pretty devoted Velvet Underground fan.

I see some POV here. "Distastefully oversaturated instrumentals"? Sounds like disdain. And really, in defence of "explicit", it's not that obscene. Lou could have been far more... err... "descriptive" than he was. "I Wanna Be Black" is explicit and depraved. "Sister Ray" is simply a tad debauched for humour's sake.

But I could be wrong.

No, you're correct. I say take out the entire paragraph since the first part is POV and the second part ("...is often cited as a seminal influence on myriad punk and Alternative rock bands and genres") doesn't say who often cites it or which bands have been seminally influenced. If there was even a small citation it might be okay, but a pretty flimsy paragraph otherwise. Wowbobwow12 16:46, 27 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

well, it should me mentioned, i think, as an earlier forerunner to alternative rock. Joeyramoney 00:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that, though. Much of the sound of early punk is, at least with use of guitars, reminiscent of "Sister Ray" and "I Heard Her Call My Name". Just a few words of explanation and you can satisfy both sides. Thanks, Wowbobwow.

Uh, G-F-C is not a I-IV-V Chord Progression. A I-IV-V Chord Progression in the key of G is G-C-D. I dont know which is wrong. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TheSobrietysRule (talk • contribs) 00:35, July 16 2006 (UTC).

who told you it was in G? logically it would be in C. Joeyramoney 08:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• The progression is G-F-C, so would that make it I-VII-IV? --Surachit 08:04, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would be right, or, alternatively, II-I-V -- TheSobrietysRule

I'm not familiar with the song, I'm sorry to say, but in the key of G G-F-C would be I-flat VII-IV, rather than I-VII-IV. 213.131.238.25Dermot

The chord progression in the article is still glaringly wrong? -- TheSobrietysRule

Alas, I still haven't heard the song. However, reading quickly around (for example: http://homepage.mac.com/ramonrempel/JoJo/songs/v/velvetunderground.html) it looks as if the solo in the song should be rooted on G. This would put the song firmly in the listener's ear in the key of G, and the sequence should be regarded as I-flat VII-IV.

Flat VII is quite a common chord in rock music, as it is a good substitute for V, and it has an attractive modal feel to it (as it lacks the sharpened leading note -- F# in the key of G). For example, Get Back has the chord sequence A - G - D, which looks like V-IV-I in D, except that everything else about the song suggests that the song is in A, including all the solos. This is because it IS in A, and the sequence is I-flat VII-IV. Funnily enough, that song actually even ends on D, and it still feels like an unresolved cadence, because D is IV not I.

If I manage to hear a version of Sister Ray, I'll change the entry, but in the meantime if anyone else wants to try soloing over the record, which sounds better, a G blues scale or a C?213.131.238.25Dermot

Yeah, it definitely looks as if it's in G: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:BrdNU-q3etAJ:akson.sgh.waw.pl/~kg23187/phpBB2/viewtopic.php%3Ft%3D444%26view%3Dnext%26sid%3D6ae718e374298fe4798a3283eac4b853+%22sister+ray%22+%22key+of+G%22&hl=en&gl=ie&ct=clnk&cd=6 >> a) They start off in G b) They stay on it for about 3 and a bit bars out of 4 c) The G is the basis of the drone they've created << 213.131.238.25 17:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)Dermot[reply]

It is in G. http://www.fretplay.com/tabs/v/velvet_underground/sister_ray-crd.shtml >> Many of the "tonal" guitar and/or organ riffs are over the G mixolydian scale (G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G). <<

Flat VII is a perfect chord for playing in the mixolydian mode, since it has a flattened leading note, just like the mixolydian mode.213.131.238.25 16:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)Dermot[reply]