“Why Don’t You Smile Now”
The Downliners Sect
One of the first known songwriting collaborations between Lou Reed and John Cale, ‘Why Don’t You Smile Now’ was written for the Syracuse band The All Night Workers during Reed and Cale’s days penning songs for the small Long Island City based label, Pickwick Records. By the time the track was released they’d jumped ship to form The Velvet Underground. The song somehow made its way across the Atlantic where it was covered the following year by the British band The Downliners Sect on their third record The Rock Sects In. The Downliners Sect mixed R&B and Rock influences in fashion similar to their more successful contemporaries The Rolling Stone and Yardbirds but found little commercial success in the UK. This track enjoyed a bit of renaissance as did The Downliners Sect when it was included on one of the Nuggets comps. The original version by The All Night Workers is also worth checking out. It has a droning quality that’s suggestive of the sounds to come from the early Velvet Underground.
