ニコ 『チェルシー・ガール』
NICO
CHELSEA GIRL
CD: Verve
発売：ポリドール株式会社
ポピュラーCD名盤シリーズ
P28P 25076
Made in Japan
￥2,800
帯文：
「アンディ・ウォーホールに見出され、ヴェルヴェット・アンダーグラウンドに
参加したカリスマ的女性ヴォーカリスト、ニコのファースト・アルバム。’68年発表。」
「追悼盤」
「●おわび：お聴き苦しい箇所がありますがマスター・テープに起因するものですので御了承下さい。」
1．美しい季節
THE FAIREST OF THE SEASONS
(Copeland-Browne)
2．ジーズ・デイズ
THESE DAYS
(Jackson Brown)
3．リトル・シスター
LITTLE SISTER
(Cale-Reed)
4．冬の歌
WINTER SONG
(Cale-Reed)
5．イット・ウォズ・ア・プレジャー・ゼン
IT WAS A PLEASURE THEN
(Nico-Cale-Reed)
6．チェルシー・ガールズ
CHELSEA GIRLS
(Reed-Morrison)
7．アイル・キープ・イット・ウィズ・マイン
I'LL KEEP IT WITH MINE
(B. Dylan)
8．サムホエア・ゼアーズ・ア・フェザー
SOMEWHERE THERE'S A FEATHER
(Jackson Brown)
9．ラップ・ユア・トラブルズ・イン・ドリームズ
WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS
(John Cale)
10．ユーロジー・トゥ・レニー・ブルース
EULOGY TO LENNY BRUCE
(Tim Hardin)
PRODUCED BY TOM WILSON
◆Pat Pattersonによる裏ジャケ掲載ライナーノーツより◆
「I'd seen Nico a year ago when Warhol first opened his Exploding Plastic Inevitable. I was rounding a corner of the stairs when this tall lithe figure moved past like a sudden thought-picture you saw so totally you saw no details; the parts creating none of the sum.
Her set ended finally and her manager told me not to be surprised if she turned her head when introduced.
"She's very shy, really," he said.
"No, I'd like to talk. It's not that I have to talk . . . I just don't see why I should be silent . . . right now."
Nico seemed relaxed and extremely feminine in that personal, yet distant, way which is the mark of so many European woman.
After promising that I wouldn't ask any everyday questions, I did just that: How long had she been singing.
"Well, yes," she said, but instead of continuing she stopped and seemed to search back past all the timeless copouts, past the obvious to what she really did think.
"I don't even see that it makes a difference," she replied finally, "because everyday I feel that the day before doesn't count . . . so much happens . . . I don't sing for the audience. I try to remain as much alone as I can . . . not to make contact at all. (Except for the people who come every night.)
"I like sad songs, tragic ones . . . I like to improvise with the notes, with the feeling I have at the time about the song."
Even those people who were friends of hers only six months ago she feels isolated from, because in this *Underground movement* (the italics are hers) things move so fast because yesterday doesn't exist.
"They think I'm not polite . . . but whatever I have to say to these people seems so unnecessary . . . I just can't be around . . . be around anything that is forced . . . I'd rather just remain how I feel . . . what happened before happened . . . now it's only the sentiment that you can't scratch out."
People, places, the years no longer exist for Nico except as blocks of emotion that can't be recaptured but only re-felt.
"I can't respond in the old way . . . it's you know fake . . . with people that you like for good reasons but not the most important reasons."
One of Nico's favorite people she says, was Lenny Bruce. "I like him for that thing . . . that nothing is wrong to do or to say or to take . . . he really destroyed himself in the end."
Her voice is low but strong; sensuous but reserved. Sometimes she seems as if she is talking to herself.
Nico's speach is slow; she makes sudden leaps of thought jettisoning the bridging word. Like a movie camera her thoughts keep cutting, instead of panning, from one to another; only feeling linking them up and leading her on. Her voice flies high as she talks putting her emphasis on the conjunctions instead of the adjectives or verbs.
The conversation changes to Andy and *Chelsea Girls*, three and a half hours long. "I like the last sequence with the Pope and Ondine and that quiet film beside it." Nico is also in his new film, all in color, which runs for twenty-four hours.
She says Andy likes other people to become Andy for him; that he doesn't want to be always in charge of everything.
"He would rather be me or someone else sometimes . . . like the radio interview when I couldn't show up . . . he went on and took my part - said the things I would say.
"It's part of pop art, I guess, that everybody can impersonate somebody else . . . that you don't always have to be you to be you.
"If tomorrow I find somebody who is pretty much like me and I put her here to sing, she can be Nico while I go to do something else."」
◆本CDについて◆
二つ折りブックレット外側にLPジャケ＆裏ジャケ画像、ブックレット内側に「コンパクト・ディスク・デジタル・オーディオ・システム」説明文。投げ込み（十字折り）にかまち潤による解説、英語歌詞。インレイにトラックリスト。
オリジナルLPは1967年にリリースされました。
サンディ・デニーがフェアポート・コンヴェンションでカバーしたボブ・ディラン作「I'll Keep It with Mine」、中谷美紀が坂本龍一編曲でカバーしたタイトル曲など、ギターとストリングス、そして沈み込むようなノスタルジックな歌声。冬の日の灰色の午後にじっくり耳を傾けたいです。
★★★★★
Winter Song
The Fairest of the Seasons
