7-inch Picture Sleeve of the Week: The Velvet Underground: “Head Held High”/”Train Round The Bend”

7-inch Picture Sleeve of the Week: The Velvet Underground: “Head Held High” / “Train Round The Bend”

This is the first installment of Pop Goes The Babble's 7-inch Picture Sleeve of the Week. One of the many geeky, and hipster-ish, things about me is that I collect 7-inch vinyl singles. Not sure how many I have (need to do an inventory some day), but I have a lot of cool 45s with picture sleeves that I’ll be featuring on this blog over time. This first one, however, is not one I own – just one I like: a French pressing of The Velvet Undergound’s “Head Held High”/”Train Round The Bend.”

Despite the typo - “Bend” is printed as “Bond” – the picture sleeve is a snazzy re-purposing of Stanislaw Zagorskiof’s cover art from the LP of V.U.’s 1970 album Loaded with a yellow background.

The subway entrance illustration stands out more – pops, more aptly, as it’s a great example of the era’s pop art.

Obtaining an original pressing of this 7-inch will be very costly – a vintage copy lists on Ebay for $169.99. Nevertheless, one day, mark my words, it will be mine.

More later…