Nico (was Nikko)
Patricia Jungwirth
events. The author frequently corrects things which are demonstrably untrue
[his brackets], however only the people involved know what really happened...
In our last instalment, Nico related how Dylan spent "an evening and a week"
with her in her Paris apartment. The story continues...
"So, then we went together to Greece for a short time, a little place near
Athens, and he wrote me a song about me and my little baby. I was the first
to sing it in public [not true, Judy Collins was]. But he didn't like it
when I tried to sing along with him. I thought he was being chauvinistic and
a little annoyed that I could sing properly - at least in tune - so he made
me more determined to sing to other people." The song is titled 'I'll Keep
It With Mine', and its opening verse runs thus:
You will search, babe,
At any cost,
But how long, babe,
Can you search for what is not lost?
Ev'rybdy will help you
Some people are very kind
But if I can save you any time,
Come on, give it to me,
I'll keep it with mine.
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Cut to May, 1965 - Nico is in London, 'involved' with Brian Jones, and
Andrew Oldham (the Stones' manager) has offered her a recording contract. Of
course, that song from a year before was on her mind...
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'She had one thing only on her mind: she must find a song for her debut
single. She considered the best choice to be Bob Dylan's ballad that he
wrote with her in mind, 'I'll Keep It With Mine'. His songs had already
helped to propel careers: 'Blowin' In The Wind' had boosted Peter, Paul and
Mary, while 'It Ain't Me Babe' was such a big hit for the Turtles that it
was given a respray as 'I've Got You Babe' to launch Sonny and Cher. If only
Dylan would let her sing it. Once more she was in luck. Dylan was lounging
around London. He'd just completed a sensationally successful tour of
Britain, the one captured in candid detail by D. A. Pennebaker in a film
documentary called 'Don't Look Back'. Nico had missed the final concert at
the Royal Albert Hall but found him, inevitably, at a party. "He looked
terrible. Bob was completely drugged up and moody and arrogant as ever. I
had not seen him so thin and white, like a matchstick.
He was asking me about the Stones and their clothes. What do they wear
now?What shirts? What boots? He was wearing a leather jacket, but not a
biker jacket, with a blue tab collar shirt. It was so ordinar. He looked
like a handyman and he wanted to be a Rolling Stone. It was funny because
there were these boys trying to look like him! He wanted too much to be in
the fashion, but it took him a long time to get comfortable with the
changes. He was always paranoid about these things, and about the people
around him, when there was a photographer there - "would it be bad to be in
this photograph?" When he fist saw 'Don't Look Back' he was shocked. It
wasn't his behaviour that gave him the shock, it was how he looked, his
image to the world, captured for ever on this film, a matchstick in a
leather jacket. He wanted to be Brian [Jones] or Jim [Morrison], not a folk
singer, and that's why he wanted to ban the film at first. It's strange
because he had his own look, when he stopped trying to be somebody else -
the Dylan hair, you know? All artists go through this passage. They make
themselves beautiful a little bit at a time. Sometimes they force themselves
and lose respect - look at Lou Reed. It's not a vanity always; it's done for
the sake of the followers, to be a hero, a perfect idol."
Nico told Bob about the record deal. "He was not very flattering to me. He
didn't like women singing. Joan Baez had followed him on this tour, you
know, but he wouldn't let her sing. He was jealous because she was more
famous in America. She had more success with singles than him." Nico
reminded him of 'her' song, and she remembered him saying, "Well, I'm going
down the coast for a break. I'll be back in a week or so to record some
stuff with some British guys. Why don't we try it out then?" She would
regret her nod of consent, and not only because 'down the coast' meant the
coast of Europe. Dylan, his Playboy bunny girlfriend and his portly manager
Albert Grossman allowed a mixture of Portuguese food, drink and drugs to
take their toll. Joan Baez recalled, "Everybody said 'I'm tired of being in
England, let's go someplace where there's a good restaurant.' I mean, you
live with Albert Grossman, you're gonna eat. Everybody took off and came
back sick. And I don't know whether Bobby had tonsilitis, syphilis, or just
a stomach-ache or what." He spent three days in a London Hospital.
Once discharged, the last thing on Dylan's mind was working with Nico. But
she hung on tenaciously, and he was eventually lured into a London studio to
follow up a private session he'd undertaken. He had wanted to grasp the
mechanism of moving from acoustic to electric and from solo to group. He'd
tried it in secret with an English rhythm and blues band, and it had fallen
apart. Now, in this rambling session, they picked up the pieces as best they
could. Nico hung around for hours and hours: "I sat around with the
girlfriends. Did you know, girls were called "chicks"? We were like the
chickens [hens] waiting for our rooster. I felt too old for this. No, not
too old but too experienced. But that is how we were then. We waited for the
men. I don't like waiting for men. I like people to wait for me - that makes
it more equal." By the end of the day Dylan was drunk, yet he vamped at the
piano so Nico could sing 'I'll Keep It With Mine' - one rehearsal, one take.
The recording was turned into an acetate demonstration disc (a 'demo'). It
was not bad, not good, but rushed. Before Nico even got a chance to check
it, Dylan told her, "This is going to be my next single. Whaddya think?" He
launched into a song at the piano. Nico replied tartly that it was not as
good as 'her' song. He had played her 'Like A Rolling Stone'."
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from : Nico: the life and lies of an icon, by Richard Witts,
London: Virgin, 1993
(fascinating book, much much more about Warhol, Dylan, Grossman, Edie,
the Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground, etc.)
Includes a complete discography ; it would seem from the tracks listed
for live recordings that 'I'll Keep It With Mine' disappeared from Nico's
set lists after 1985. Anyone confirm this?
tj