Auf dem Papier eine Factory-Skizze, einer der wenigen Songs, die Lou Reed widerwillig an Nico gab, die er nicht in der Band wollte. Im für 2.500 Dollar und drei Nächte gemieteten Studio spielen Reed auf seiner Gitarre und Sterling Morrison am Bass ein leises Intro. Die ersten Schläge auf Maureen Tuckers umgekippte Bassdrum, dann setzt John Cale ein mit seinem präparierten Piano, das er auf unmenschliche Weise so spielt, als würde ein mechanisches Piano von allein spielen. Normalsterbliche halten das 20 Sekunden durch, Cale hämmert seine Cluster unerbittlich fast sechs Minuten lang, und der Song klingt wie die Prozession in irgendein Schattenreich, Reeds Gitarre im Ostrich-Tuning (alle Saiten auf dieselbe Note gestimmt) spielt Mädchenträume unter dem Blick von Todesengeln. Nico, die einsame Majestät ihrer Stimme, eine Göttin, in der urbanen Unterwelt gelandet. Skizze? Dies ist der Klang einer erhabenen Tragödie.
Andy Warhol: „Her voice, the words, and the sounds The Velvets made all were so magical together.“ (U 34)
David Croland: „She was observant, and people don’t get this! She was at heart a poetess. Your looks do get in the way of your progress if you’re that beautiful, there’s no doubt about it. People become instantly attracted to you and instantly jealous at the same time. […] What I liked most about her, after the initial shock of her extraordinary beauty, was her reserve, her quietness and her way of observing people who were observing her. She was very, very curious and very quiet. She didn’t spin around: people spun around Nico because of her beauty and her mystery. She was sweet. I liked her shyness. I did not find her aloof, I found her shy.“ (JOB 44 ff.)
Danny Fields: „She was so impressive to look at that boys feared her, mainly.“ (JOB 62)
Billy Name: „Nico … rarely spoke. And only when someone spoke to her. She was totally nonflamboyant, nonpretentious, but absolutely magnetically controlling.“ (JOB 79 ff.)
Andy Warhol: „She had this very strange way of speaking. People described her voice as everything from eerie, to bland and smooth, to slow and hollow, to a ‚wind in a drainpipe,‘ to an ‚IBM computer with a Garbo accent.‘ She sounded the same strange way when she sang, too.“ (JOB 90)
John Cale: „Here was this formidable woman, the world’s first supermodel. We were awed by her style.“ (JOB 95)
Playboy Magazine: „… seeing her in her floor-length cloak and listening to her musical, remote talk, one gets the impression of a medieval German Madonna glimpsed in a dream full of images of spring and sunlight.“ (JOB 95)
Lou Reed: „Nico’s the kind of person that you meet and you’re not quite the same afterwards. She has an amazing mind. … If you get into Nico, there’s always the danger that you don’t want to leave.“ (JOB 96)
Andy Warhol: „Nico was weird and untalkative. You’d ask her something and she’d maybe answer you five minutes later. […] She wasn’t the type to get up on a table and dance, the way Edie might; in fact, she’d rather hide under the table than dance on top of it. She was mysterious and European, a real moon goddess type.“ (JOB 102)
Paul Morrissey: „We were always fighting tooth and nail to get poor Nico on. She didn’t fight this sort of thing herself, she was very shy and self-effacing. She would make a little remark. Or then she would giggle a lot. She’d giggle like a girl.“ (JOB 122)
Dave Navarro: „It’s kinda hard to be a fan of Nico and not fall in love with her. You hear this voice and you see her image, the cheekbones, the whole package, it’s strong, unapologetic, haunting, melancholy. As soon as I heard that voice I fell in love with her – I’d marry this girl today.“ (JOB 149)
Una Baines: „‚She just fits into those fears that men have of women who are outside of the norm.“ (JOB 171)
Nico: „I read a lot, I like to read. I prefer Nietzsche of all. Then I like some English poets: William Wordsworth, Lord Tennyson, Lord Byron, Shelley … Shakespeare sometimes, but Tennyson is the best of all. He’s an incredible Romantic, it’s just so beautiful. You find everything there.“ (JOB 254 ff.)
Gerard Malanga, A Short Essay In Appreciation Of Nico, 1967, über Nicos „unapproachable mystique“:
„But the most incongruous is the look of the eyes, focused most frequently on the imperceptible. […] Because of her impact as a three-dimensional whole, Nico would be most effectively represented in sculpture, but not even the most profound artist could capture the strange and unexplainable quality of her eyes. They captivate, but do not beckon; they ignore, but cannot be forgotten; they reflect the inner reality, but leave no clue to its contents. Their expression, or lack of a comprehensible expression, does not relate to the thoroughly comprehensible phenomenon of her beauty. Nico’s eyes seem to guard a great mystery which, hidden in aloofness, they do not want anyone to know exists.“ (U 40)
John Cale: „We were trying to do a Phil Spector thing with as few instruments as possible. On some tracks it worked. „Venus In Furs“ is the best, and „All Tomorrow’s Parties […]“ (U 74)
Paul Morrissey: „Sie war wie Garbo, sie hatte Anziehungskraft, Klasse, Würde. Sie beantwortete sogar Fragen wie die Garbo, umständlich, aber auf witzige Art.“ (AvC 28)
John Cale: „… die Szene aus La Dolce Vita, wo sie in den Daumen ihres Verlobten beißt. So war sie.“ (AvC 49)
Pauledith Soubrier, Halbschwester Alain Delons: „Sie war selber kein deutscher Staatsbürger, sie stammte von irgendeinem kleinen Planeten, das arme Mädchen.“ (AvC 64)
Nico: „Ich bin zum Schauspielern zu scheu. Ich kann nicht so tun, als wäre ich jemand anders, weil ich schon jemand anderes bin.“ (AvC 75)
U = Up-tight – The Velvet Underground Story. By Victor Bockris / Gerard Malanga, London / New York / Sydney / Cologne 1983.
JOB = Jennifer O. Bickerdike: You Are Beautiful And You Are Alone. The Biography of Nico, London 2021.
AvC= Axel von Cossart, Kult um Nico, 1995.
021
Das Cabinet des Christian Erdmann 