doug yule is done dirty and deserved better

imagine you're doug yule. you're 21, you enter a band to fill for the bassist who was kicked, with each year it gets more chaotic, the drummer goes on maternity so you lend your younger brother from high school, the guitarist is increasingly more disengaged so you end up doing his parts and helping creatively, the leader has a clear vision and needs your help because he has no one else so you help him, you do what he asks you to do, then the band just falls apart, and because of your scummy manager someone has to keep going and no one is up to that so you end up being the lone member of a band you were the new guy in because of contractual reasons, and in another country, and you have to do an album because of the manager so you do your best, again alone in a band that's not even yours, and people hate you for it for decades, and the leader you helped speaks some shit about wishing you were dead, and you still have to tour and play the songs, and that's what you do for a fucking living too, and then you get labeled as "the mike love of the velvet underground" despite countlessly apologizing for the album you did because of your scummy manager when you were already tired and well over that mess of a band you had entered, then the band you helped keep together gets inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame but you get erased, then they reunite and you don't get invited.

doug is a really talented guy and a fundamental piece of the velvet underground we know and love. i just feel really bad for his place in the canon. he apparently lived a low-key life afterwards, in normal jobs, with no money. really sad