Sister Ray

"Sister Ray" is a song by American rock band the Velvet Underground from their 1968 album White Light/White Heat. The lyrics are by Lou Reed, with music composed by Reed and bandmates John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker. The lyrics concern drug use, violence, homosexuality, and transvestism. Reed said of the lyrics: "it has eight characters in it and this guy gets killed and nobody does anything. It was built around this story that I wrote about this scene of total debauchery and decay. I like to think of 'Sister Ray' as a transvestite smack dealer. The situation is a bunch of drag queens taking some sailors home with them, shooting up on smack and having this orgy when the police appear." Lou Reed also stated "'Sister Ray' was about a gay dealer". At 17 minutes and 29 seconds, it is the longest song on White Light/White Heat, taking up most of the second side of the record, as well as the longest song in the Velvet Underground's studio discography. Rock critic Lester Bangs wrote in 1970, "The early Velvets had the good sense to realize that whatever your capabilities, music with a simple base structure was the best. Thus, 'Sister Ray' evolved from a most basic funk riff seventeen minutes into stark sound structures of incredible complexity."