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“I’m Waiting for the Man” visually describes the experience of buying heroin from a dealer, specifically $26 worth near the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street in Harlem, New York City. In various reviews, it is described as "tough garage rock" and a "proto-punk classic". In a song review for AllMusic, Dave Thompson called it "one of the all-time classic rock songs … Over chunky guitar, clunking piano, and jackhammer drums, Reed half-sings, half-intones what he would once describe as a love song about a man and the subway.
It has been covered by numerous artists. In December 1966, David Bowie's manager, Kenneth Pitt, acquired an acetate of the then-unreleased The Velvet Underground & Nico and presented it to Bowie. Upon hearing "I'm Waiting for the Man", he went to his band at the time, the Buzz, and told them they were going to learn it: "We learned 'Waiting for the Man' right then and there and we were playing it on stage within a week." He later recalled in an 2003 interview with Vanity Fair: "Amusingly, not only was I to cover a Velvets' song before anyone else in the world, I actually did it before the album came out. Now that's the essence of Mod."
Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin fame, has made a similar claim, saying, "I'm pretty certain we were the first people to cover the Velvet Underground." Several sources, including drummer Jim McCarty, indicate that the Yardbirds learned "I'm Waiting for the Man" during November 18–20, 1966, when they and the Velvet Underground were performing in Detroit. However, this is contradicted by a performance of the song with Jeff Beck and Chris Dreja on guitars and Page on bass, which would place it sometime between June 21, 1966, (Page's first gig with the group) and October 30, 1966 (when Beck quit the group). Other performances incorporated part of "I'm Waiting for the Man" in a medley with their version of "I'm a Man". One version from May–June 1968 is included on Last Rave Up in LA.
“I’m Waiting For The Man” marks the beginning of a common motif that runs throughout The Velvet Underground & Nico, as the subject of heroin appears in several tracks afterwards.
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