Helen of Troy (album)

This album came out without Cale's consent, who considered that the tapes were not finished. After shipping the first presings Island Records replaced the track "Leaving It Up to You" with "Coral Moon", because it mentioned Sharon Tate, wife of film director Roman Polanski, who was killed in 1969 by the Charles Manson gang. Things turned sour, and Cale and Island went their separate ways. The CD version contains both tracks.

John Cale explained: "It could have been a great album. I came back from finishing Patti Smith and had three days to finish "Helen of Troy" before I went on Italian tour. I was spending eighteen hours a day in the studio. When I got back, I found the record company had gone ahead and released what amounted to demo tapes. The trouble was that Island had their own ideas of what that album should sound like. They wanted to include songs I don't particularly like, but it was also an impertinent assumption on my part that I was capable managing myself. My determination to have "Helen of Troy" the way I did was not really fair to Island or my management, especially at a time when Island was losing its percentage of the market, which was making everybody very paranoid."

During the sessions Cale cut three other songs: the unreleased covers "Willow Weep For Me" and "God Only Knows", and "Mary Lou" which was released on the compilation album Guts.