the death of a cyclist
18th July, 1988 Ibiza. Although it’s extremely hot, a woman who is not yet 50, but who looks much older than her years, is cycling along a dirt road. She falls off and hits her head. A taxi driver who sees her picks her up and takes her to hospital. There, thinking she has sunstroke, they don’t give her the treatment she needs. The woman, whom nearly a year earlier, had said “I was the Mongolian leader Kubla Khan in a previous life” didn’t regain consciousness.
She had been born 49 years earlier in Cologne, Germany. Christa Paffgen was her name before she became Nico forever. Nico acted in Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’; Nico starred in an adverts for a Spanish brandy called Terry; Nico had a son called Ari with French actor Alain Delon; Nico went to New York and spent time at Andy Warhol’s Factory; amongst others, Jimmi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison and John Cale and Jackson Browne fell in love with Nico.
On returning to Europe, Nico became film-maker Phillippe Garrell’s muse and lover. Nico spent more than half her life enjoying and suffering from drug dependency. Nico was deaf in one ear from birth. There’s no point in trying to mention all the Nicos there were within Nico. No-one will ever know the real Nico, not even after reading the dozens of biographies and articles there are about her. Nobody really knows anybody. But we do know that when Andy Warhol made the first Velvet Underground record he insisted that Nico had to sing on it. Although Lou Reed was against it. And it was probably because of that imposition, the lack of enthusiasm with which the record was met and its poor sales that they left her off the second LP (kicking Warhol out at the same time). It was on that second record –White Light/White Heat– that the narrative song The Gift came out: you can read it on the previous pages. John Cale did the voice for it; Lou Reed wrote it. The recital of the poem is on in the left-hand channel; the music and singing is on the right-hand channel. A sign that the two egos in the group were no longer in agreement.
Nico started her solo career but, fortunately for all of us, her deep, cold, fragile voice – which was going to be the precursor for so many other things – was already recorded on the Banana record. Who knows where Kubla Khan and Nico’s body is now...
She had been born 49 years earlier in Cologne, Germany. Christa Paffgen was her name before she became Nico forever. Nico acted in Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’; Nico starred in an adverts for a Spanish brandy called Terry; Nico had a son called Ari with French actor Alain Delon; Nico went to New York and spent time at Andy Warhol’s Factory; amongst others, Jimmi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison and John Cale and Jackson Browne fell in love with Nico.
On returning to Europe, Nico became film-maker Phillippe Garrell’s muse and lover. Nico spent more than half her life enjoying and suffering from drug dependency. Nico was deaf in one ear from birth. There’s no point in trying to mention all the Nicos there were within Nico. No-one will ever know the real Nico, not even after reading the dozens of biographies and articles there are about her. Nobody really knows anybody. But we do know that when Andy Warhol made the first Velvet Underground record he insisted that Nico had to sing on it. Although Lou Reed was against it. And it was probably because of that imposition, the lack of enthusiasm with which the record was met and its poor sales that they left her off the second LP (kicking Warhol out at the same time). It was on that second record –White Light/White Heat– that the narrative song The Gift came out: you can read it on the previous pages. John Cale did the voice for it; Lou Reed wrote it. The recital of the poem is on in the left-hand channel; the music and singing is on the right-hand channel. A sign that the two egos in the group were no longer in agreement.
Nico started her solo career but, fortunately for all of us, her deep, cold, fragile voice – which was going to be the precursor for so many other things – was already recorded on the Banana record. Who knows where Kubla Khan and Nico’s body is now...
