This article is about the original song by The Velvet Underground. For the split single cover by Nirvana and The Melvins, see Here She Comes Now/Venus in Furs.
"White Light/White Heat" is a song recorded by the American rock band the Velvet Underground. It was released as a single in late November 1967 with the B-side "Here She Comes Now". The following year it appeared as the title track on their second studio album of the same name.[3]
"White Light/White Heat" was also a staple of the Velvet Underground's live performances from 1967 on. The tune appears on numerous live bootleg albums, and is included in a nearly nine-minute version on the group's posthumous 1969 Live double LP. Reed also recorded a live version of the song in 1974, which featured on his Rock 'n' Roll Animal and Greatest Hits albums. Reed went on to perform the song with several notable musicians, including David Bowie, Metallica and the Raconteurs.
The Guardian and Paste both ranked the song number seven on their lists of the greatest Velvet Underground songs.[5][6]
In popular culture
Two traditional-music influenced versions of the song were included on the soundtrack to the 2012 film Lawless, one by The Bootleggers featuring Mark Lanegan and one by bluegrass musician Ralph Stanley.[7]
The live version of the song from Reed's Rock 'n' Roll Animal was specially covered by Julian Casablancas for the HBO television series Vinyl. It appeared on the soundtrack of the fifth episode, during a flashback to a fictional Reed gig in 1973.
Bowie, a long-time Velvets fan, had been performing "White Light/White Heat" since 1971. (His album of that year, Hunky Dory, features a credit to the song for having inspired Bowie's "Queen Bitch"). It had featured throughout the Ziggy Stardust Tour (including a performance with Lou Reed on July 8, 1972), been recorded by Bowie for two BBC sessions, and been slated for inclusion on Pin Ups (the backing track from this session was later recorded as a solo version by Mick Ronson in 1975). Despite this, the Ziggy Stardust – The Motion Picture project would be the first time the song had been issued on a Bowie record, and as such it was released as a single.
With Bowie at the peak of his global stardom thanks to Let's Dance, "White Light/White Heat" was considered an unusual turn for the pop audience he had attracted,[citation needed] and reached only #46 in the UK. Bowie performed the song during his 1987 Glass Spider Tour, a live version of which was released in 1988 (re-released in 2007) on Glass Spider. The song continued to feature in Bowie's live repertoire throughout his career.
