Fans often say that Lou's work with the Velvet Underground is better than much of the work he did after, and is still doing. Citing either the glorious decadence of the VU catalogue or simply the better song- and bandcraft, Lou consequently gets pretty riled in interviews when the Velvets are mentioned. Obviously for Lou, he's pissed because critics glorify his VU past over his current projects, fearing they'll be talking more about former than the latter in the great annals of music history. I must say that I side with the fans; with the exception of Transformer and maybe even Metal Machine Music, I don't think Lou's solo work has much of the energy or smarts of his VU catalogue. The songs are better, his singing was definitely better, and the music powerfully more singular back then. I'd even speculate that the phrase 'I like your old stuff better than your new stuff' was inspired solely by Lou Reed's situation.

The songs of the Velvet Underground are street, literate and uniquely classy. There's a crafty and ambitious songwriter at work in them. There's a radical noise and disturbance in the band just as there's amazing tenderness and delicacy of expression. And thematically, Lou could cross from observational pop to disturbed and psychologically scathing poetry, all in the space of a side of vinyl. He definitely had a (drug-addled) gift for exposing the dark lining of life, and singing it. He was also the first to bring a sense of literary theme and tactics to songwriting.

In one interview, I remember Lou getting huffy with the interviewer's hunger for more decadence in his new work, saying that he'd dealt with decadence once and for all on The Murder Mystery (on the self-titled Velvet Underground album). Which track is really a piece of chamber-decadence, all deliberately nasty and disturbing images double-layered with sexy gore and humour ('isn't it sweet, being unique … we're number one, and soulful'). The track seems to play a role in the album's otherwise conscious morality songs, offsetting their calm humanity. A nicely dirty, speed-y revelry. But for decadence in the full poetic sense (fin-de-siècle-symbolist-maldoror-wilde-baudelaire etc), and ignoring for a moment Murder Mystery's rather meaty poetry, I think we need to look elsewhere for Lou's best work.

And that work is Ocean. Ignore the rough and ready version on VU, head straight for Volume II of 1969 – Live. That version is monumental, disturbed, and loaded with all of the Velvet's razor-to-bone intensity. And it is psychedelic in the best sense: presenting a vision of the world that's existentially overwhelming. Which is not to say that the Velvets were into psychedelics and trippy visions of colour and love; this is the disturbing end of the drug spectrum. Now, most drugs have a small value or byproduct which on occasion marries with vision (excepting crystal meth) – and the Velvets were big speed users (which is why this song repeats and repeats in the coda). But I like that even speed can occasionally come up with such a chilling poetic vision of the world:

Earth is a hollow head [or: hair], part of a bigger head
It nearly drives me crazy

Insects are evil thoughts
Thought of by selfish men

Here comes the waves down by the shore
Washing the eye of the land… that has been… down by the sea

Writing down these lyrics is to miss Lou's crucial phrasing of the words: the way he punctuates 'It Nearly… Drives Me Crazy' is shockingly sincere and meant. Madness and the sea spread wide and deep like an hallucination as big as the world, possibly as means of obliterating the smallness of man and consciousness. The land is an eye, the ocean its cleanser, and the night possibly the lid that covers all? The small thoughts of man like an upstart of madness and evil compared to the big madness of the world? A poetic statement against that bigger madness? This is the kind of symbolism matched only by the heavy symbolists and Baudelaires of the world. Though of course there is no coherent intent or statement in them.

I love the way Mo Tucker's cymbals roll in and crash like waves. I love that her drums pound relentlessly. I love the organ like an undercurrent of winds. I love the depth of the drop-D tuning on guitars. I love that the hallucination is somewhat static as the waves crash on and on to infinity. It's a speed-poetic vision made real by the whole band — and exactly the kind of expressive magic missing from Lou's later work.

Now a cynic would say that's the drugs talking, Lou, and not some arty decadent wank. But I've got a little theory about drugs and music and it go a little something like this: no drug experience or inspiration is so total that it isn't also human. Whether it's Keef high on heroin or Bob on the ganja or Lou all wired on speed: these drug statements are also human statements. The drugs might be an oblique inspiration or effect, but ultimately they highlight something uniquely human and psychologically real. Saying 'it's the drugs' is only a little true; what's more real and significant is the range of humanity being expressed.

Ocean is like a dark vision of the world, the poetic keys to a disturbing perception of human reality — just like good decadent poetry. It is perfectly twinned with the lighter fun of the also-repetitive What Goes On. Catch them both on 1969. Contrast it with the versions of Heroin. And feel the shivers.

There's another version on the Peel Slowly and See box set which has lyrics exploring the drowning angle, and princesses in castles and Malcom's Curse (huh?). But the live lo-fi 1969 version is where it's at.