Bizarre, Media, Society, Uncategorized

R.I.P Lou Reed

Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

Lou_Reed_(5900407225)Lou Reed Rock N’ Roll Poet, Singer and Musician died this week at the age of 71. To my mind he was a far greater artist than the world gave him credit for being. What made him special besides his guitar virtuosity; the distinctive sound of his music; his unique voice; was that his lyrics reflected his raw emotional reaction to the life he saw around him. We see many of the Rock N’ Roll Idols of our youth trade their revolutionary sentiments for a knighthood and celebrity lifestyle. Yet Rock N’ Roll in its inception began as outlaw music in the 50’s. The main cause of R&R’s horrifying the mainstream in America was that it was White musicians copying the blues styles of what were then called “Race Records” because they were performed by great Black artists. The initial horror at Elvis wasn’t just the movement of his hips, but the fact that this quintessentially southern White boy was singing Black music. The music industry soon tamed Elvis as it tamed those to come with some exceptions. Lou Reed was never tamed and was never really listed in the top tier of Rock Legends by a public that found his lyrics too raw and too filled with what was the seamy side of American life. What follows are the lyrics to one of Lou Reed’s angriest and greatest songs as pertinent to America today as it was when he wrote it in 1989. Afterwards you can hear him sing it. To me one of the two great American poets of the last 100 years died this week and people think he was just another Rock N’ Roll singer.

Dirty Blvd. by Lou Reed

Pedro lives out of the Wilshire Hotel
He looks out a window without glass
The walls are made of cardboard, newspapers on his feet
His father beats him cause he’s too tired to beg

He’s got 9 brothers and sisters
They’re brought up on their knees
It’s hard to run when a coat hanger beats you on the thighs
Pedro dreams of being older and killing the old man
But that’s a slim chance he’s going to the boulevard

He’s going to end up, on the dirty boulevard
He’s going out, to the dirty boulevard
He’s going down, to the dirty boulevard

This room cost 2,000 dollars a month
You can believe it man it’s true
Somewhere a landlord’s laughing till he wets his pants
No one here dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything
They dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard

Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I’ll piss on ’em
That’s what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let’s club ’em to death
And get it over with and just dump ’em on the boulevard

Get to end up, on the dirty boulevard
Going out, to the dirty boulevard
He’s going down, on the dirty boulevard
Going out

Outside it’s a bright night
There’s an opera at Lincoln Center
Movie stars arrive by limousine
The klieg lights shoot up over the skyline of Manhattan
But the lights are out on the Mean Streets

A small kid stands by the Lincoln Tunnel
He’s selling plastic roses for a buck
The traffic’s backed up to 39th street
The TV whores are calling the cops out for a suck

And back at the Wilshire, Pedro sits there dreaming
He’s found a book on magic in a garbage can
He looks at the pictures and stares at the cracked ceiling
“At the count of 3” he says, “I hope I can disappear”

And fly fly away, from this dirty boulevard
I want to fly, from dirty boulevard
I want to fly, from dirty boulevard
I want to fly-fly-fly-fly, from dirty boulevard

I want to fly away
I want to fly
Fly, fly away
I want to fly
Fly-fly away (Fly a-)
Fly-fly-fly (-way, ooohhh…)
Fly-fly away (I want to fly-fly away)
Fly away (I want to fly, wow-woh, no, fly away)

Notes on Dirty Blvd.

Dirty Blvd is the 3rd of 14 tracks on Lou Reed’s 15th solo album, New York, released in 1989 to broad critical acclaim. In New York, Reed builds upon on his longtime theme of documenting New York City’s underbelly and its most stigmatized and downtrodden residents. It is regarded as one of his most conceptual albums, and in the liner notes Reed himself instructs listeners to take in the whole album in one sitting, “as though it were a book or a movie.” Apologies to Lou for breaking it down song-by-song.

Dirty Blvd describes the life of Pedro, a boy living and hustling in seedy areas of Manhattan. Pedro’s wish to magically disappear is his only respite from an abusive father, abysmal living conditions, and a bleak future that Reed portrays as near-inevitable. Reed’s deadpan delivery implies that he’s seen many unfortunate youth like Pedro end up “dealing on the dirty boulevard.”

More broadly, Dirty Blvd is a lament for the poor and vulnerable in a New York that, in the late 1980s, was beginning its obsession with “cleaning up” its most notorious districts of crime and vice. Longtime NYC mayor Ed Koch was leaving office and future mayor Rudy Giuliani was beginning to rear his ugly head. The NYPD was growing in power, and police-inflicted violence against the homeless was becoming commonplace:
“Your poor huddled masses, let’s club ‘em to death
And get it over with and just dump ’em on the boulevard.”

This comes from the website Rock Genius: http://rock.rapgenius.com/Lou-reed-dirty-blvd-lyrics

Twenty-four years after Lou Reed wrote this song the Billionaire who bought the New York City Mayoralty will soon be leaving office having accomplished all that Lou Reed Predicted. I will miss this great poet of the underbelly of our society.

Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

161 thoughts on “R.I.P Lou Reed”

  1. nick,
    you don’t have to like or buy his lifestyle and his faults. If the music is good and the words mean something to you, what else is there?

  2. “Don’t condescend to me about Reed’s music. I merely mentioned Sweet Jane because I thought that his best. I have all his music. This is where we often spin out of control. We both love his music, let’s just leave it there.”

    Nick,

    When will you learn that disagreeing with you and backing it up with opinion is neither fighting words, nor condescension, it is merely discussion? I replied to you in a civil manner and if more comes of this it is you spinning out of control.

  3. What was said above about separating the person from their art resonated with me. Fortunately for all of us, there are some who are great human beings worthy of the legacy they leave behind.

    Sports are another venue where extremes abound. Even after all these decades the jury is still out on whether Ty Cobb should be remembered for his baseball skills or the fact he was the most obnoxious man to ever don a MLB uniform. And that is despite the fact he has serious competition in that department.

    As is mentioned earlier, Frank Sinatra was another such person, and he too has serious competition.

    Thank goodness there are people on the other extreme as well. I went to school with Archie Manning and Brooks Robinson. I also used to work in the next office from Lenny Wilkins. They are regular people who were about as unpretentious as you could get. I went to high school with Jim Ed Brown and had no idea he could sing until I saw him on television after we graduated. Talk about not bragging! All those guys were absolutely wonderful people.

  4. Ay, Ay, Ay, Sometimes I bite my tongue until it bleeds w/ you. Please read the last 2 sentences I wrote, and then reconsider what you just did.

  7. We differ in that if a Kennedy is supporting women’s issues publicly, and raping beating and betraying women personally, then their public stance is hypocritical and political marketing. If Lou Reed is singing about “pissing” on the downtrodden on the Dirty Blvd. and wouldn’t in real life piss on them if they were on fire, then it’s hypocritical marketing. The former is to get elected, the latter to get rich. I bought his music, I just didn’t buy the horseshit, well crafted marketing. If you don’t think Lou Reed was in it for the money then you bought that image, hook, line and sinker. Reed was a tightwad who COVETED wealth. Like I said previously, Reed knew his target audience and w/ folks like you he say a big bullseye w/ a dollar sign in the middle. Don’t condescend to me about Reed’s music. I merely mentioned Sweet Jane because I thought that his best. I have all his music. This is where we often spin out of control. We both love his music, let’s just leave it there.

    1. AY,

      That was what I’m talking about! Love that genre of music which is sort of rock n’ roll country. How do you like Ry Cooder. When I was 37 I got my first massive heart attack. Back then they kept you in the hospital for 2 months. Since I was newly married with a young child it was a hard time. My best friend at the time Elliott (Mr. Toast) who has since died unfortunately young, brought me a Ry Cooder tape to pass the time. I played this song over and over again it made me happy and Ry Cooder is great. You might find it interesting since you know I’m Jewish, but that was part of the fun.

  9. Lou Reed was not a perfect person, but who is. His words do speak to me. I especially like Walk on the Wild side. RIP

  10. I read a lot about Rock n’ Rollers. The beatification of which I speak is when you portray him as a defender of the downtrodden and then tie in Koch and Rudy for chrissake. Anyone who knew Lou Reed has said he was a narcissist who didn’t give a rat’s ass about ANYONE but himself. If you feel the need to paint Reed as speaking about the people on the Dirty Blvd. as being their voice, to each their own. But, the people who played w/ him have said he gave a shit about nobody but himself. Songs of the homeless were written to fit his image. Just like his heroin addiction was twisted into heroin chic. All marketing man. I have more admiration for the blue collar Keith Richards or the homeless kid Jimi Hendrix. Lou Reed grew up in privilege on Long Island and courted that bad boy image for wealth, not social justice. Again, I love his music, the image is horseshit. I am a marketers nightmare. I mute all TV commercials. Seriously, ALL commercials. I’ve seen that Progressive woman thousands of times but I’ve never heard her voice., Reed knew what buttons to push to market himself w/ his target audience. It is the music INDUSTRY after all.

    1. “The beatification of which I speak is when you portray him as a defender of the downtrodden and then tie in Koch and Rudy for chrissake”

      Nick,
      You can read all you want into what I wrote, yet you miss my point. What Reed wrote about in 1989 was decrying what Ed Koch, then Rudy Giuliani and finally Mike Bloomberg would do to the City I love and am a part of. Lou Reed, though he grew up on Long Island, was infused with the spirit of New York, as are all of us who live in that Metropolitan area. He had anger at those who were trying to make it into what it has become today, which is a sanitized Disneyland for the economically comfortable.

      As far as him being self-serving that is simply counter factual. Was he a self-involved human being? Yes I would think so because almost all great artists are. Was he courting commercial success? No that is simply not the case, quite the opposite as the record shows. I’m impressed that you like “Sweet Jane” but one can like an individual song and not get the artist. I know many people of quite conservative bent that love Bruce Springsteen’s music, but despise his politics. So it goes.

      In the end all that remains of any artist is his actual body of work. Mozart was a flawed human being, but does anyone really care at this point? John Lennon was a great artist and “Imagine” was inspired greatness. Yet he lived a privileged lifestyle and from all accounts was so personally obnoxious that he didn’t practice was he preached. Orson Scott Card wrote one of the great novels of the 20th Century in “Ender’s Game” and yet he is a thoroughly loathsome, bigoted human being. I’ll spend money to see the movie, despite the fact that Card is someone whose views I disdain. Do I derive political meaning from much of Lou Reed’s music? You Betcha because it was genius and I could care less how he lived his life.

      By your own words Nick, you eschew the idea of role models and I agree. We see too many people who are held up in that light and more often than not their feet are made of clay. What is important is not the person, but the art and ideas that person expresses.JFK is a hero of mine for many things, but I doubt I would have liked him had I known him personally. Sinatra was the greatest of his ilk, but I doubt that I’d like him if I knew him. In my mind I separate the Art from the personal artist. I love the work of Clint Eastwood, but hate his politics and there is no dichotomy in that.

  11. nick spinelli 1, November 2, 2013 at 9:35 am

    … He wasn’t a very good person. …
    ============================

    “Reed has said in the past that he may as well be Lou Reed because nobody else does it better.”

  12. http://www.npr.org/2013/10/29/241437872/never-back-down-fresh-air-remembers-lou-reed

    Reed’s “longtime publicist Bill Bentley”:

    On Lou Reed’s personal demons

    “I think Lou’s demons were how to control the side of him that made him less than loving. I think he might’ve come up in an era where being different was a really bad thing, and it probably gave him either some guilt or definitely some turmoil. I know there have been reports that he received shock treatment when he was a teenager and he was given medicine to try to control [him]. I don’t really know that any of that was ever true. I never talked to him about what happened when he was a teenager, but I think with Lou, he really saw the beauty of life and wanted to be a person who could live in that beauty as often as possible. And sometimes trying to find that sense of contentment might take you to drugs, might take you to drink, might take you to a lot of things that aren’t that good for you.

    “I think there [were] a lot of questions in [Lou’s] mind of, How do you become a good person? How do you fight off the demons and the devils that take you down the other road? And that was his lifelong struggle, but I think that’s also what made him such a great artist, because he never backed down from it. He acknowledged it. He wrote songs about it, like, What is that line between good and bad in a person? And where does it take you?”

  13. “He wasn’t a very good person. He was a great artist. Charles Barkley said it best when he yelled into the camera, “I AM NOT A ROLE MODEL.”

    Nick,

    Lou Reed never saw himself as a role model and that was the essence of his art. Had he thought that of himself that way he would have never written “Sweet Jane” or “Heroin” for that matter, because he would have worried too much about his image. I don’t think Picasso the man was a good human being, but he was a visionary artist. You will note that I praised the Artist in Lou Reed and didn’t examine the man himself. Were I to write in celebration of Charles Barkley, who I think was never given full credit for the great basketball player he was, I would write about his art of playing basketball and about his integrity as a sportscaster who speaks his mind.

    AY mentions Delbert McClinton, a great artist mostly unappreciated by the mass public. When someone achieves greatness in what they do, I think that a short time spent in appreciation of their work is called for.

  14. I loved his music and his version of Sweet Jane is one of my favorite songs. That said, I find no compulsion to beatify entertainers, athletes, etc. He wasn’t a very good person. He was a great artist. Charles Barkley said it best when he yelled into the camera, “I AM NOT A ROLE MODEL.”

  15. “There’s only one great occupation that can change the world, that’s real rock ‘n’ roll. I believe to the bottom of my heart, the last cell, that rock ‘n’ roll can change everything. And I’m a graduate of Warhol University, and I believe in the power of punk. To this day, I want to blow it up. Thank you.” -Lou Reed

    When GQ honoured Lou Reed

    By Stuart McGurk 28 October 13

    http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/comment/articles/2013-10/28/lou-reed-gq-men-of-the-year-2013-tribute

    “When we first thought about who who we wanted to give our Inspiration award to, there was only one name we spoke of – Lou Reed. Some people inspire movements, some inspire generations. But Lou Reed inspired almost every generation – from punk in the Seventies, to glam in the Eighties, to alternative rock in the Nineties. Hell, his halting delivery was even sometimes credited with inventing rap. Brian Eno famously said that The Velvet Underground’s 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico – which bombed at the time, selling just 10,000 copies – may not have sold many, but for those who did buy it, most were inspired to form a band.

    Today, he’s the bedrock for everything that has come since. Just this year he spoke admiringly of Kayne West’s latest album. Unlike other ageing rockers, the music landscape had never left him, because he still defined it.”

    =====

    R.I.P., indeed, Mike S. A lovely tribute.

  16. WATCH: Lou Reed (1942-2013) Performing at Iraq Veterans Against the War Benefit in 2008

    http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/10/31/watch_lou_reed_1942_2013_performing_at

    “A legend of the New York rock scene, Reed co-founded The Velvet Underground before going on to a prolific solo career. In his later years, he took part in civil rights and environmental activism along with his wife, the musician and artist Laurie Anderson. In March 2008 on the eve of the 5th anniversary of the U.S.-led Iraq invasion, he performed his song about a Vietnam veteran, “Xmas in February,” as well as “Voices of Freedom” at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn at a benefit for Iraq Veterans Against the War and United For Peace and Justice. He was joined on stage by Laurie Anderson, Moby and other musicians.”

  17. Lou was and still is a great musician…. I thank you Mike for this tribute….. To someone I have admired for years….. He’s a icon in the likes of Woodie Guthrie and Pete Seeger….. Delbert McClinton …. Butch Handcock…. Joe Ely….. True to themselves……

  19. Thank you much Mike S.

    I have neglected to get into Lou Reed’s music and lyrics.

    My bad.

    RIP Mr. Lou Reed.

  20. In my prior incarnation (life as a human), Lou Reed was one of my favorite musicians. I saw him at the Fox Theatre in Saint Louis. Sweet Jane and Walk On The Wild Side shown and played in the article here are the two best. The article articulates very succinct and true facts about this guy, his place in time and his relationship to Blues. As a Blues boy on the East Side of the River, i.e. East Saint Louis, IL, I enjoyed some of the best Blues musicians. Gambled a bit and frolicked as well. Nuthin like playing a bit with a looker that’s a hooker right after leaving the Blue Note Club. That is where he learned to “walk” on the Wild Side. He dreamed up the lyrics there at London House East, in East Saint Louis, Illinois.

    Really, this is one of the best articles on the blog in a while.

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