June, 1 1974

The End

The End
(Nico)

This is the end, beautiful friend,
This is the end, my only friend,
The end of our elaborate plans,
The end of everything that stands,
The end, no safety no surprise,
The end, I'll never look into your eyes again.

Can you picture what we'll be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need of some stranger's hand
In a desperate land ?

Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane,
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain.

There's danger on the edge of town,
Ride the King's highway, baby.
Weird scenes inside the gold mine,
Ride the highway West, baby.

Ride the snake,
Ride the snake to the lake,
The ancient lake.
The snake is long, seven miles,
Ride the snake.
He's old and his skin is cold.
The West is the best
The West is the best
Get here and we'll do the rest
The blue bus is calling us
The blue bus is calling us
Driver, where're you taking us ?

The killer awoke before dawn,
he put his boots on.
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall.
He want - went to the room where his sister lived
And then he paid a visit to his brother.
Then he, he walked on down the hall
And he came to a door and he looked inside.
"Father ?" "Yes, son ?"
"I want to kill you. Mother, I want to ... aah"

Come on, baby, take a chance with us,
Come on, baby, take a chance with us,
Come on, baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus.

This is the end, beautiful friend,
This is the end, my only friend.
The end, it hurts to set you free,
But you'll never follow me.
The end of laughter and soft lies,
The end of nights we tried to die,
This is the end.

June, 1 1974
UK LP Island ILPS 9311
1974-06-06
« Details »

ACNE photo by Barrie WenzellACNE: Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Nico, Brian Eno
Recorded at the Rainbow Theatre, 232 Seven Sisters Road, London N4, London, 1974-06-01 on the Island Mobile
Mixed at Sound Techniques, 46A Old Church Street, London SW3, 1974-06-00
Producer: Richard Williams. Engineer: John Wood
Recording Assistants: Phil Ault & Ray Doyle

Nico vocal, harmonium
Brian Peter George St. John Baptiste de la Salle Eno synthesiser

"...[John Cale] did a really interesting version of Heartbreak Hotel, in a minor key. It's incredibly suicidal. I mean you could never believe that that song could turn out to be such a downer as that... Nico did Deutschland Über Alles, which was very good... and she did The End by the Doors, which is the one they put on the album... Nico doing The End was so chilling, it really was. It was incredible. She invests it with so many levels of meaning I didn't hear in the Doors' one. She underplays it... there's just the harmonium, me playing synthesizer — almost doubling the harmonium part — and her singing... which is just like a rich, kind of non-specific miasma of sound..."
— Brian Eno, Creem, 1974-12-00

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Serge Mironneau