The Velvet Underground - Venus in Furs (1967): the story

Despite the credit on the cover, The Velvet Underground and Nico was not so much produced by Andy Warhol as facilitated by him. Warhol had taken the band under his wing at the end of 1965 after seeing them play at an East Village bar called Café Bizarre, and went on to fund the recording of the group’s debut album after insisting that they use foghorn-voiced German actress Nico as a guest singer. According to Lou Reed, Warhol also served as the group’s “protector,” his influence frightening studio engineers and label executives away from requesting changes. Given both the sound of the record and the subject matter of its songs, Warhol’s help was indispensable.
“Venus in Furs” was inspired by an apparently autobiographical book of the same title by nineteenth-century Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose name later led to the coining of the word masochism. The song is a microcosm of the album’s aesthetic: a dark lyric; a simple, memorable melody, almost a minor-key nursery rhyme; and an abrasive, dirgelike backdrop. John Cale’s shrieking viola added color to Maureen Tucker ’s frill-free drumming and Reed’s droning guitar (all six strings were tuned to the same note).
The album was greeted by indifference on its original release, but, as Brian Eno quipped, everyone who heard The Velvet Underground and Nico went off and formed a band.