R.I.P Lou Reed

Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

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