Another Jedi Mind Trick on me, via Roger. The Velvet Underground
encompasses the late Sixties/early Seventies for me--decadence, a smelly
brilliance. Lou Reed at least survived his excesses. At the very least,
the album "New York" is a treasure. Of what? You tell me. And of course
HIS version of "Take a Walk on the Wild Side" made Jim Stafford's cover
truly pathetic. But that's AM radio for ya: you can't talk about giving
head on the radio when the impressionable teenagers are listening. Ha. On
the first VU album Reed performed "Heroin," perhaps the holy of holies if
you like horror songs, and let's just say it's more than borderline accurate
in terms of words and their connection to the music. Reed has a face like
10 miles of bad road now, and he traveled every inch of it to get that way.
There's a wonderful poem by David Wojahn, a monologue on the subway by Reed
back in 1966, returning from Delmore Schwartz's viewing. That's how I
learned Reed was Schwartz's student at Syracuse University. Small wonder
one of them survived.
Ken
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