Lou Reed died yesterday at the age of 71.
Lou always found his way into my listening life. I wrote about Lou a few years back on this blog, recounting how I played his album Rock N Roll Animal all day one Christmas when I was an early teen, filling the house with the strains of Heroin and Sweet Jane. A few years later, one of my prize finds from scouring the bargain bins at the local Newberrys store were a couple of early Velvet Underground recordings– on eight-track tapes. I still chuckle at the idea of Lou and the Velvets on one of those big clunky tapes. I remember driving with a shoe box filled with tapes to play in the car. I think there were maybe ten tapes.
But Lou was there, on one of those huge dinosaur cartridges. It was as unpolished as anything I had heard. Bad recordings and Lou’s flat vocals which sounded even more strained on these recordings. But there was something there that transcended the sound quality or even Lou’s voice. It was real expression. Not raw emotion, but restrained expressions of deeper feelings. The sensation I got is similar to that which I get now from looking at great Outsider art. It is work that somewhat takes the form of more traditional art but is less concerned with the technical aspects and more centered on getting across the feeling and the individual voice of the artist behind the picture. They can appear crude but sometimes there is a pure beauty in them, one that speaks across the wider range. Real art.
That’s what I heard in Lou’s songs for many years. Sorry to see him go.
There are many songs from Lou that I could play here but I want to hear Perfect Day. It’s a song that I forget at times but when I come across it, find it sticking in my mind for weeks. Hope yours is a perfect day…
Redtree Times 