"There were four of us literally locked in a room writing songs. We just churned out songs, that’s all. They would say, 'Write ten California songs, ten Detroit songs,' then we’d go down into the studio for an hour or two..."

"... and cut three or four albums really quickly, which came in handy later because I knew my way around a studio, not well enough but I could work really fast. While I was doing that, I was doing my own stuff and trying to get by, but the material I was doing, people wouldn’t go near me with it at the time. I mean, we wrote ‘Johnny Can’t Surf No More’ and ‘Let the Wedding Bells Ring’ and ‘Hot Rod Song.’ I didn’t see it as schizophrenic at all. I just had a job as a songwriter. I mean, a real hack job. They’d come in and give me a subject, and we’d write."

Said Lou Reed, quoted in Episode 164 of the podcast "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs" — "'White Light/White Heat' by the Velvet Underground.'"

This episode is very long and full of so many varied things — lots about John Cage before we get to John Cale and Lou Reed arrives much later. The stories merge brilliantly. I'm just pointing you at this wonderful episode, not quoting something representative of the whole.

I chose that quote, because that's the point that cued up a snippet of "Cycle Annie," which I found in full here. The label is Obnoxious Records, and it's not on Spotify, so maybe you're not supposed to listen to that. It's so clearly Lou, produced under conditions that you'd think would exclude a recognizable distinctive voice.

I paused the podcast to listen to "Cycle Annie" quite a few times, and I'm only halfway through the episode, which is over 3 hours long. Most of what I've heard so far is about avant garde art music, so it's in that context that "Cycle Annie" felt so intriguing.

Now little Cycle Annie, she has got a guy named Joe

And he follows her around just everywhere she goes
Now I ain't saying nothing, baby, I ain't sayin' that I mind
But when both of them get on that bike, it's Joe sits behind

The song also rhymes "meaner" and "Pasadena," which generously acknowledges the debt to "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena." Jan and Dean flipped the gender stereotype of driving before Lou did, and I'm sure there are many other older songs about fast driving women. "Maybellene," etc.