New York, 1966

Andy Warhol rented the Cameo-Parkway Studios for three nights to produce 'The Velvet Underground and Nico'. Lou Reed did not want Nico on the album and Nico wanted more songs to sing. The album was turned down by every record company in New York, and when Warhol and The Velvet Underground went to Los Angeles to perform at the Trip, they met with various record companies to try and sell it there. One rejected it, saying "no drug songs". Elektra rejected it, saying "no violas". Tom Wilson at Columbia was interested and told the band to wait until he moved to MGM so that he could release them on the Verve label. He suggested they make it more commercial by adding more Nico songs, so Lou wrote 'Sunday Morning'. Andy had suggested making it a song about paranoia, which Lou did with lyrics like 'watch out, the world's behind you'. However, Lou insisted on singing it himself on the recording even though Nico sang it at live performances.

Lou Reed: "Andy made a point of trying to make sure that on our first album the language remained intact. He would say, 'Make sure you do the song with the dirty words, don't change the words just because it's a record."
Andy Warhol: "The whole time the album was being made, nobody seemed happy with it."