Femme Fatale

“Femme Fatale” is the third track from American rock band The Velvet Underground’s 1967 album, “The Velvet Underground & Nico”. Nico was a German vocalist whose real name was Christa Päffgen, and provided vocals for this album that was part of a collaboration with The Velvet Underground.

“Femme Fatale” was written by TVU singer, songwriter and lead guitarist Lou Reed, with production done by iconic American artist Andy Warhol. According to the book “The Girl in the Song: The Real Stories Behind 50 Rock Classics” written by Michael Heatley and Frank Hopkinson, the inspiration behind “Femme Fatale” came from Andy Warhol asking Lou Reed to write a song about Edie Sedgwick, saying: “Oh, don’t you think she’s a femme fatale, Lou?”. The velvet Underground guitarist Sterling Morrison also had this to say about the song: “Femme Fatale”—she [Nico] always hated that.[nasal voice] Nico, whose native language is minority French, would say “The name of this song is ‘Fahm Fatahl’.” Lou and I would sing it our way. Nico hated that. I said, ‘Nico, hey, it’s my title, I’ll pronounce it my way’”.

There is no music video for the track, however a YouTube user under the name “dannycefc” created a video for the song that also acts as a tribute to Edie Sedgwick, which as of April 2020 has 10 million views since its upload in October 2009.

Release Date: December 1966

Songwriter: Lou Reed

Producer: Andy Warhol

Label: Verve

Chart Rankings: There is no chart rankings available for “Femme Fatale”, but the track does have 18.7 million worldwide streams on Spotify.

The lyrics to “Femme Fatale” can be accessed here: LINK