"Virginia Plain" is based on lead singer Bryan Ferry's 1964 painting of the same title (he was an art student taught by British painter Richard Hamilton at the time). It features a huge packet of Virginia Slims cigarettes with a picture of Andy Warhol superstar Baby Jane Holzer on the front, standing in the middle of a plain. Speaking about the painting, Ferry revealed to Melody Maker in 1972:
"The painting was a sort of throwaway watercolor, and the song has lots of little images and throwaway lines. The painting was done in 1964, and although the song was written this year, it reflects the feeling of that time – I was up in Newcastle, living with a guy who'd helped Warhol to make the Marilyn Monroe silkscreens. It's a whole American Dream thing, living up there yet constantly thinking about Warhol's Factory and Baby Jane Holzer. It's got some other things in it now. Vegas, Nevada, Route 66."
The guitar solo by Phil Manzanera was totally improvised at the recording of this song. He later claimed he played the first thing that came into his head.
This was Roxy Music's first hit in the UK, peaking at #4. It was recorded after Roxy Music's debut album but is included on later reissues. Ferry recalled to The Sun:
"Just after we released the first album, the record company, Island Records, asked us if we had any other songs which might make a good single. I had this song called 'Virginia Plain' which we quickly recorded and that became our breakthrough single. I remember how amazed we were when we heard it on BBC daytime radio as we were driving our van up the motorway to a gig."
Ferry recalled to The Mail on Sunday on June 28, 2009: "We had just released the first Roxy Music album and our record company, Island, seemed as surprised as we were by its instant success. But there was no obvious single, so they asked me if I had any other songs knocking about. I did have an unfinished song called 'Virginia Plain,' which we quickly recorded. I vividly remember our roadie driving up and down outside the studio as we tried to record the sound of his motorbike."
Like "
Up the Junction" by Squeeze and "Square One" by Coldplay, this is one of only a few songs where the title is never mentioned in the song except in the abrupt final line. The song's producer, King Crimson co-founder Peter Sinfield, told
Mojo he encouraged this sudden ending: "There was a lot of discussion about the peculiar ending: 'What's her name? Virginia Plain!' Some people weren't too sure about it, but with my King Crimson training I thought that was exactly what it should do, to catch the disc jockeys out."
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Suggestion credit:
Colin - Elgin, United Kingdom
The "Robert E. Lee" referenced in this song is not the Confederate general who served in the American Civil War, but Roxy Music's lawyer. Manzanera told
Classic Rock: "When Bryan sang of taking a deal to Robert E. Lee and hoping he doesn't blow it etc., he was being very literal. As that's exactly what happened when we were offered the deal by Island Records to sign for them."
"Virginia Plain" was recorded at Command Studios in London in 1972. Speaking to Classic Rock, Manzanera said most of the song came together there except Brian Eno's electronic parts: "We just turned up at the studio, Bryan played us these three incredibly simple chords on the piano, and we just started messing around with it there and then. Apart from Brian's synths and various tape machines, which he had pretty much assembled randomly from whatever weird toys came his way, everything else was very much done as-live in the studio."
On August 24, 1972, Roxy Music made their famous
debut on BBC's Top Of The Pops with "Virginia Plain." With Ferry in the role of the flamboyant crooner, the performance marked the first time much of the British public had encountered the band's theatrical stage presence. The performance is now regarded as one of the most memorable in
Top of the Pops history and has been parodied by British sketch shows
Big Train and
Shooting Stars.
Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon credited "Virginia Plain" as the first song that made him want to pursue music. Lydon told AOL:
"The best I ever heard was 'Virginia Plain,' by Roxy Music. I thought that was unlike anything I'd heard on radio ever. Whoosh, tore my head off. I was working on a building site at the time because I needed the money to continue my education – education to me is vital. And that did wonders; it really, really thrilled me, that record. I was 15 and it gave me encouragement. It was just so damn original. It was in your face and it was over-the-top grandiose. It was a mad amalgamation of things and its image was many, many images. But it allowed you to use your mind inside the song and work it out to be whatever you wanted. That was fantastic."
Between 1997 and 2013, Virgin Atlantic operated a Boeing 747 called "Virginia Plain." The British airline has a history of naming its aircraft after song titles, with other members of its fleet including "
Strawberry Fields," "
Daydream Believer," and "
Honky Tonk Woman."
"Virginia Plain" is featured throughout 1998's Velvet Goldmine. Written and directed by Todd Haynes and starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the film follows the rise and fall of the fictional glam-rock star Brian Slade. The soundtrack also includes a number of Roxy Music covers as performed by The Venus In Furs, a supergroup of British musicians that includes Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, Suede's Bernard Butler, and Roxy Music's Andy Mackay.
