Train Round the Bend

The Velvet Underground recorded “Train Round the Bend” during the April–August 1970 Loaded sessions at Atlantic Studios in New York City. Lou Reed wrote and sang the track, with Doug Yule, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker credited as band personnel, and Geoff Haslam, Shel Kagan and the Velvet Underground producing. Released by Cotillion in 1970 on Loaded, it formed part of the album the band made in response to Atlantic’s request for a more commercially direct record. The track’s rough blues-rock drive showed that the album’s radio-minded brief still left room for the band’s abrasive late-period sound. The track remains a recognised Loaded deep cut and a marker of the group’s final Lou Reed-era studio album. Later reassessments of Loaded have treated it as part of the record’s balance between classic rock-and-roll forms and the Velvet Underground’s residual menace.