This deep cut from David Bowie is rather marvellous: a Velvets cover with parping sax and Bowie playing a wailing blues harmonica.

He sings it in a bad American accent that occasionally pops back across the Atlantic, and occasionally gets the lyrics wrong.

I’m guessing he wrote them down while listening to that first Velvet Underground & Nico album.

I knew that David Bowie was an early adopter of The Velvets and played a couple of their songs live in his early days.

And I’ve heard his concert versiond of I’m Waiting For The Man and White Light White Heat. But this is the first time I’ve heard a studio recording of Bowie covering Lou Reed.

This version of Waiting for The Man dates back to 1967 when Bowie was singing in a Mod band called The Riot Squad.

The lineup featured Bowie on vocals and that blues harp; Bob Evans on tenor sax and flute, Rod “Rook” Evans on lead guitar, Brian “Croak” Prebble on bass, George Butcher on keyboards and Derek “Del” Roll on drums.

The reason I – and most other Bowie fans – had never heard it is that it was never put out at the time and it was not until 2012 that it found its way on to a compilation album called The Last Chapter: Mods & Sods.

There’s nothing Mod-sounding about it to my ears (perhaps it’s more of a Sod) but it’s a little piece of pop history.