Even without having heard Reed’s Berlin then or later,
I have a strong sense of its impact on you in
the contrasting circumstances of a safe Melbourne then.
Nicely rounded off at the back lawn, Bill.
Max
On Apr 19, 2016, at 14:58, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Berlin
>
> In Berlin by the bed in the afternoon, 1975,
> Lou Reed slowly, with piano and violin and voice,
> shook the teenage willies out of me.
> This was like no other new record listen. I lay
> on the bed with curtains fully closed, mind astir.
>
> In suburban Melbourne, after a morning's work
> at a city department store, I'd popped into One Stop
> Records at Princes Gate, picked up the imported gatefold
> copy, with corner snipped, cheaper for being so far from
> the original acetate and not selling well enough to re-press.
>
> Lou's lost-sounding intonation, the story of the doomed
> violent, drug-raddled couple, the hotel with its 'greenish walls/
> a bathroom IN the hall', as though it squatted mid-corridor,
> sounding so slimy, so decadent. So far from sun and from
> the back lawn Dad wanted me to mow that afternoon.
>
> bw
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