“Never gonna happen”: The 1960s classic Lou Reed’s employers wanted nothing to do with

Lou Reed’s record company rejected his song ‘Heroin’ when he was working as a commissioned songwriter, expecting him to produce conventional material such as surfing songs. The episode shows how Reed’s interest in depicting lives and experiences he knew clashed with the commercial expectations of the music industry.

The article says Reed later recorded ‘Heroin’ with the Velvet Underground for their debut album, The Velvet Underground and Nico. A May 1965 demo, released decades later, features Reed and John Cale in a more folk-like arrangement; its narrator sounds more certain than in the familiar album version, before the music builds into a harsher, faster performance.