Studio (1967):
Live (1972):
What’s it mean to you?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I have a friend who I have known for about seven months now. He works construction. The first thing I ever heard him say was, “I used to think a lot. I don’t do that anymore.”
Coming from him, it was one of the wisest things I had ever heard.
I can’t really embrace his wisdom and continue to do what I do, but I have learned to stop failing to expect the unexpected.
What it meant? It meant that Lou was, in 1967, writing about what he knew, and that VU could (from the sounds of it) barely play their instruments.
Which was much of their charm and glory. The cliche is that not many people heard VU at the time, but everyone that did went and started their own band. Not because VU was an amazing group (though at times they were), but because each of them said, “Shit, even I can do that!”
And most of them sucked, but some went on to make great music of their own. Just as in writing, photography, painting, or any other art, having something to say is a lot more important than technical proficiency. You can learn the latter, if you want. You can’t learn the former; you can learn to say it better, but the vision thing isn’t taught in any music academy. You either have it or you don’t. If you don’t, you’re just another guitar wizard hanging out at the mall. If you do, you’re Lou Reed.
I hate to say it, but any time I see old performance footage of Lou Reed, I realize how awful he became after he cleaned himself up. Perhaps the damage to his brain was done, and could not be undone, but he could not sing worth a damn for the last 35 years of his life. He sounded more like a drunk when he was sober than when he was drinking. A cruel irony.