OK, it’s fair to say that this album is not quite what I was expecting from the founder of the legendary Velvet Underground. It opens with some perfectly fine 70s arty pop, but the lyrics pretty soon take off into surreal flights of fancy with references to murdered oranges, singing elephants and a glam rock stomp about Macbeth. The title track, a Beatles-esque reference to the post-WWI Treaty of Versailles, is probably the highlight, even if it’s an unlikely subject for a pop song.
The reason for all of the random whimsy quickly becomes clear on the second disc of this deluxe edition with a series of demos and outtakes that openly reference the prodigious amounts of cocaine that Cale was evidently doing during the recording with much sniffing and odd bits of studio chatter.
Probably not going to listen to this one more than once, to be honest.
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