Around 1978, poet John Cooper Clarke was invited to appear as guest DJ on London's Capital Radio's nightly rock show. He used the opportunity to air some of his own favorite, but seldom-heard, records, including "Janitor of Lunacy" from Nico's third album, Desertshore. According to legend, the station's upper echelons were so outraged that Clarke was never invited back. The song was written about Brian Jones, with whom Nico enjoyed an affair during the mid-'60s. It was not the most conventional of relationships, however, and the song follows suit -- Nico herself regarded it as akin to a poem on a tombstone, an intention which is certainly captured by the blast with which the song opens, a boiling harmonium giving way to an almost Valkyrian and demandingly protracted opening syllable. If an open crypt could sing, this is what it would sound like. At the same time, however, the accusations of gothic gloom which now draped Nico like a long black skirt are readily extinguished by the loveliest of melodies, and though "Janitor of Lunacy" scared the bosses at Capital Radio, it won the hearts of the station's listeners. It has remained one of Nico's best-loved songs.
(Dave Thompson, allmusic.com)