"On a shelf behind Reed’s desk, amid Velvet Underground-­related books and music... was a notarized, self-addressed package, to and from Lewis Reed at his parents’ address on Long Island."

"It appeared to contain a tape, and was postmarked May, 1965, when Reed was twenty-three, working as a songwriter at Pickwick Records, living with his parents, and busking on street corners with his new friend John Cale. 'The Velvet Underground & Nico' would come out two years later. Should they open it? They spent years deciding. 'We were treating it like a relic,' Anderson said. They finally did, and the results, an album called 'Words & Music: May 1965,' came out [last] month."

From "Unboxing Lou Reed’s Posthumous Parcel to Himself/After the death of the Velvet Underground front man, two archivists and his widow, Laurie Anderson, discovered a mysterious sealed package from 1965. Inside was treasure: never-before-heard, folky versions of 'Heroin' and other classics" (The New Yorker).