After Sibylle Baier yesterday, a better known, but in her own way, equally mysterious German singer, best recognised in the Velvet Underground, but this from her own 1967 solo album, Chelsea Girl. Nico did perform a reference to The End herself 1986, though this was the Doors song, but today's song is written by Jackson Browne, who plays on this first recording, but he later did his own version, as did Gregg Allman, as well as many other artists, including Elliott Smith, St Vincent, Lloyd Cole and Glen Campbell. But Nico's unique quality of teutonic stony sadness, and oddly precise, low-voiced delivery has comical formality of "I want to be alone Marlene Dietrich indifference about it that, in a strange irony, comes around again as truly genuine.
I've been out walking
I don't do that much talking these days
These days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
And all the times I had the chance to
I stopped my rambling
I don't do too much gambling these days
These days
These days I seem to think about how all the changes came about my way
And I wonder if I'll see another highway
I had a lover
I don't think I'd risk another these days
These days
And if I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
It's just that I've been losing so long
I stopped my dreaming
I won't do too much scheming these days
These days
These days I sit on cornerstones
And count the time in quarter tones to 10
Please don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them.
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