“Femme Fatale” by The Velvet Underground

"Femme Fatale" was written to order. Andy Warhol asked Lou Reed for a song about Edie Sedgwick, one of his superstars, and the title came straight from Warhol musing aloud to Reed that she was a femme fatale. The band recorded it in April 1966 at New York's Scepter Studios, which was still a construction site at the time, and gave the lead vocal to Nico. She insisted on pronouncing the title her own way; Reed and Sterling Morrison, singing it theirs, refused to budge. The result is a pretty little C-major lullaby with a sting in it.

It first surfaced in December 1966 on the flip side of "Sunday Morning" before taking its place on The Velvet Underground & Nico the following year, with Warhol credited as producer. A live take from 1969 later turned up on Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes in 2001.

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