“Sunday Morning” by The Velvet Underground with Nico

"Sunday Morning" opens The Velvet Underground & Nico, the band's 1967 debut, yet it was the last song they cut for the record and it reached the shops ahead of the album, as a single in December 1966. Tom Wilson wanted one more Nico showcase with hit potential, so that November he brought the band into Mayfair Recording Studios in Manhattan. It went in so late that the master tape for side one has it only penciled in ahead of "I'm Waiting for the Man."

Lou Reed and John Cale wrote it on a Sunday morning with Nico's voice in mind, and she had sung it onstage, but on the record Reed takes the lead and Nico drifts in on backing vocals. Lusher and more polished than anything else on the album, it's the band's gentlest bid for the radio, a lullaby with a hangover.

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