I'm Waiting For The Man

This is another in the Velvet Underground's canon of songs about drugs. Not only does it fit nicely with "Heroin," it was also on the same album, and was also written by Lou Reed at about the same time as "Heroin," during Reed's attendance at Syracuse University in the early 1960s. It describes a trip to a Harlem brownstone near the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street to buy drugs from a dealer, "the man" of the title. Once again, it neither condones nor condemns the experience, but merely describes it.

The song is about scoring $26 worth of heroin in Harlem. According to Rolling Stone magazine, Reed said: "Everything about that song holds true, except the price."

As described in The Velvet Underground: An Illustrated History of a Walk on the Wild Side, songs like "I'm Waiting For The Man," "Heroin," and "Venus In Furs" were what kept The Velvet Underground out of a record contract with Atlantic Records. Atlantic executive Ahmet Ertegun wouldn't take them unless they dropped these songs, and the Velvets, typically putting ideas ahead of money, just couldn't live with that. So their first album ended up with MGM Records instead. Even after their signing with Atlantic for their fourth album, Loaded, Ahmet specifically told them to tone down controversial material.