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Thanks Andrew, Max. I passed this poem to someone else who had a similar experience with this album. They recalled the black spidery suicidal font of the lyrics in the 12 inch booklet. Poets can look and maybe sniff at Reed's weirdness and clunk, things like rhyming 'vial' with 'vile' but I still play 'Men of Good Fortune' and 'Lady Day' with a form of pleasure. I must be a sucker for gloom on some level. Bill On Wednesday, 20 April 2016, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > 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] > <javascript:;>> 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 >