A Lifetime of Listening To Lou Reed

Wednesday is about books and reading. Or sometimes just some writing. Today, reflections on listening to Lou Reed. And writing about him.

Just last week, I started listening to Lou Reed’s catalogue — planning to go from start to finish. It’s the first time I’ve listened to his discography in quite a while. I carry so much of it in my head, and even more of it sits close to my heart. When I was a teenager Lou Reed was my god. I might have told you that, using those exact words too — it didn’t actually end well:

But last week, I wrote a poem as soon as I finished listening to the first Lou Reed album (it’s called Lou Reed). Just a fun wee thing about being struck — once again — by the music. It happens right. You leave your favourites to the side for a while, and come back. And guess what? They’re still your favourites! Doesn’t always happen. When it does it’s something truly magical I think.

Age, and life, and whatever passes for wisdom creeps into this. Parenting. Or not parenting. The way you live your life and the passage of time, it truly does impact your listening. And as someone that’s felt very driven to write about my listening — to document it, essentially — I keep thinking about new ways in. With both the listening. And the writing.

Currently, I’m still in the 70s with Lou Reed’s solo career, but I’ve also listened to every single thing by the Velvet Underground, and yes, there might only be four studio albums (five if you count the ‘traitor’ album after Lou left, and I do!) But there’s also all the compilations, live albums, and bootlegs. And I’ve gone all in. I’ve also listened to Moe Tucker’s small — and wonderful — solo catalogue. And I’m in the 1980s with John Cale’s solo works. And loving everything there all over again.

So, it’s a deep-deep dive, y’all.

But I’m also feeling very compelled to write about it, realising of course that I’ve done a fair bit of writing about Lou Reed along the way. He’s there in one of The Richard Poems — written at the start of this year:

And of course there are the obituaries, essays, blog posts, and reviews I did back in the day…ten and fifteen and 20 years ago.

I like to think that I actually taught myself to write record reviews to Lou Reed; about Lou Reed albums. In my sixth-form (Year 12) journalism class, we were asked to write some kind of review as a weekend homework assignment. A book, a film, an album…

I chose the 1975 live album release Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal. (I think I got 80% of something). But I remember just falling in love with the process. It was my favourite piece of homework ever. A little later in the 90s, and I’m trying to get published as a music reviewer, bitten by the bug, and I go out and buy a copy of Perfect Night: Lou Reed Live in London — and write as much about it as I can straight away. I send this to the Capital Times as some sort of proof that I’m ‘a writer’.

I’m auditioning for a job that doesn’t exist — begging to be taken seriously, asking for a chance to write reviews for them, of albums and gigs. I think they just said yes so that I didn’t send them more unsolicited reviews of Lou Reed albums. (And just as well, because I probably would have…)

Last week, when I got back on the Lou Reed train in this serious way — the most serious I’ve been about him in at least a decade — I started thinking about how I might actually put together a small book of essays and thoughts about listening to Lou. That title to the poem I came up with, A Lifetime of Listening to Lou, maybe that could work for a collection of essays, right? Some of the poems I’ve written could easily be turned into ultra short prose pieces.

THIS PAINTING BY MY DEAR FRIEND MATT HANGS IN MY KITCHEN. IT GIVES FRESH INSPIRATION EVERY SINGLE DAY.

See, look:

Lou Reed wrote Sunday Morning on a whim. They needed one more song — it was a throwaway tune for the singe he wished he could biff. Then, he got a sniff of the fact it was going to be the first single. He pushed Nico to the side — for the first of many times — and sang the song himself. It’s the best vocal of his career, so much so you might say he doesn’t even sound like himself. It’s not the type of conviction one should see as being the model. But then again, it almost is. A lot of fear and hurt and confusion went into his brand of coldness. A lot of sad energy and loneliness and trauma-informed response inside his version of boldness.

I wrote that just yesterday. Another Lou Reed Poem. But it works as a tiny prose piece too I’m sure. I could flatten out some of the other poems. And rework some of the essays about some of the albums:

I’ve got more to say about Magic and Loss:

And New York:

I don’t think many weeks go by when I don’t think a bit about the version of Hey Mr Rain from the 1993 reunion shows. That’s basically Lou and John fucking and fighting over and at each other for most of the 15 minutes of that song. They’re in a duel — and a duet. It’s the far better dance-off than Bowie and Jagger going all over the place as they pantomime Dancing In The Streets.

Just last week I rushed out and bought the live 1993 reunion show on double-CD (all over again) because I felt I had to have it; to be able to hold it.

Yeah, yeah I can watch the whole gig on YouTube or any clips from it, and I can listen to the album on Spotify or wherever else. But I needed to have something; something tangible.

That’s just the memory working. And wanting to keep working. And that’s part of me thinking about gathering some of my Lou Reed writings, and mentions, and then adding to them. That time, aged 14, I saved and saved to buy the VHS tape of the New York Album live concert video. And shortly after, my birthday that year, getting the Transformer album cover t-shirt.

When I was five years old, we were driving through Auckland, listening to Hauraki. The station dropped the needle on a copy of Walk On The Wild Side. It was scratched. And it jumped about a bit. That only seemed to add to the magic. My mum told me about this amazing song, and how much she loved it. And it stayed with me from that moment. I couldn’t wait to hear it again. But I had to wait for quite a while. A few years on from there mum comes home with Mistrial, an album not noted as being one of his best. But an album I absolutely love.

I say this kind of thing a lot, but it’s probably one of the albums I’ve heard the most in this lifetime. I played it over and over and fell in love with each song. Because it was, for a time, the only Lou Reed album in the house. A few years on and I bet my parents wished that was still the case. I had filled their place with Lou Reed records. In third form (Year 9) we were asked to pick a song we cared about and write the lyrics out to read to the class and then unpick. Maybe this was my first gig as a Music Journalist? But I got in mild trouble for picking the song Outside with its mentions of drugs and abortion. Does your mother know you’re listening to that? The teacher memorably asked. “I imagine so”, I replied. “It’s her record. And she suggested I listen deep for the street poetry on offer…”

That stays with you. And that album has stayed with me. Literally. I still have the vinyl copy my mum bought back in the mid-80s. It has a scratch that blurs out one of the lines in the opening song. But I love that. Can’t listen to other versions. Can ‘hear’ that scratch if I ever do listen to it on Spotify or YouTube. It’s also a reminder of that scratched copy of Walk On The Wild Side that made me sit up at five and take note.

These are things. My experiences. And there are loads of books about Lou Reed already. I know because I’ve read many of them. And will continue to. But maybe, one day I’ll write one as well.

I don’t know. It’s probably for no one other than myself. But that’s okay too right? I’ll be my mirror.