Nico: the melancholically beautiful icon

June 6, 2022
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โ€œIโ€™ve stopped my dreaming, I wonโ€™t do too much scheming these daysโ€ฆโ€

 

From Andy Warhol’s muse to rock icon, Nico has certainly left her mark in the rock genre. With her influential 1967 album, Chelsea Girl being many โ€˜60s music lovers’ favourite from the era. The album featured songs written by some of the greats – Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Tim Hardin. 

 

Nico is well-known for featuring on The Velvet Underground’s debut album, her eerie yet soothing voice captivated listeners from around the world. John Cale described her as โ€œlike a rock. She didnโ€™t move up there. It all came through the voice.โ€

 

My favourite song from Chelsea Girl is These Days. It is a hypnotic, poetic song that is equally soothing as it is unsettling. The melancholic lyrics like โ€œplease don’t confront me with my failures

I had not forgotten them,โ€ matched with her breathy voice tranquilises the listener into an uneasy and introspective state. 

 

These Days was written by Jackson Browne, who was just a teenager at the time, and he plays the unique guitar parts of the song. 

 

This song is timeless. It was featured in Wes Andersonโ€™s Royal Tenenbaums film, which brought a modern twist to the song. 

Nico lived a diverse life of success and failure. Learning about her life as a Berlin model in war-torn Germany, being a young mother at the age of 24 to a Parisian actor and an iconic face found in Warholโ€™s world in the 60s with taints of drug abuse and a young death at the age of 49. It makes her music come to life, and for the listener to understand her songs. 

Hi, I'm a copywriter from Liverpool. I have always been obsessed with words. From being a bookworm as a child to a lyric-loving teenager to a full-time writer adult!

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