Janitor of Lunacy

Janitor of Lunacy opens Desertshore and runs 4:01. Nico wrote it as a tribute to Brian Jones, who had died the year before. Far Out's Ben Forrest wrote in 2025 that the song details the pair's relationship, and that her abortion, after a roughly three-month relationship in 1965, is alluded to in its imagery. uDiscover calls it a prayer for sanctuary from an absurd fate, with a roiling, incantatory feel and one of her signature songs; FLOOD hears violent classicism, and what the first Velvet Underground album would have sounded like if Cale had written and produced it all.

It was in the John Peel session of February 2, 1971, and a second Peel session recorded on November 18, 1974 and broadcast on December 3, 1974 is listed with the song at 4:35. Setlist.fm counts 71 performances, the most of the four songs here. Soap&Skin covered it on her 2008 debut EP, and James Dean Bradfield sang it to end the first set of the 2008 tribute Life Along the Borderline.