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IN his childhood, Lou Reed longed to play rock and roll — a common dream, perhaps, but Reed was different. By his teens, he had learned to play guitar, had made his first record, had alienated his suburban parents, and had been subjected to electro-shock therapy. During these years, Reed's parents insisted that he take typing lessons so that he would develop a saleable skill, but that didn't seem to cure him of his rock and roll aspirations. As much as he could, Reed tried to live the straight and narrow: he went to college at Syracuse University in New York; he joined the R.O.T.C. (he was kicked out for threatening to shoot an officer); after graduating, he took a post with Pickwick Records as a staff songwriter, and tried to pen Top 10 hits. But he never seeme More... (Submit New Lou Reed Lyrics) (Submit New Lou Reed Lyrics) LOU REED GENIUS!! | Reviewer: Anonymous ------ About the song Perfect Day performed by Lou Reed Just sittin in boring work here, when I thought of this classic track, as a way of escapn the monotony I suppose! I think someone told me this was about Heroin use..either way its amazing..it can relate to everyone's experiences in life, particularly when one must endure a day that isn't so perfect. Set the Twilight Reeling | Reviewer: Kevin ------ About the song Set The Twilight Reeling performed by Lou Reed These are actual lyrics with an actual idea behind them, as opposed the crap being written today dripping with sentimentality and criminal behavior. These actually approach a poetry of self like Rimbaud or Beaudelaire excellent | Reviewer: Joe Patton ------ About the song Coney Island Baby performed by Lou Reed great job i can read along and sing it in my head perfectly. the great ones always need great references, if not just to see the words. True greatness | Reviewer: Mike ------ About the song Magic And Loss - The Summation performed by Lou Reed Magic and loss is one of the most powerfull song/ lyrics I know. I think few will acknowledge Lou Reed's true greatness. The song is about a inner journey, a transformation. The lyrics have so many layers and everytime I listen to it I understand it al little bit more. The song will be on my funeral, hopefully that will be some time from now. What a Song | Reviewer: Pat Tasker ------ About the song Walk On The Wild Side performed by Lou Reed Great feeling, with a walking beat, has true connection with those who want to loose themselves Awsome | Reviewer: Anonymous ------ About the song Waves Of Fear performed by Lou Reed This song is probably one of the best thing lou reed has done. // Joel in sweden CAroline says | Reviewer: Jim ------ About the song Caroline Says I performed by Lou Reed Blow me ass hole umm, i think you mean nietzsche... | Reviewer: Anonymous ------ About the song Heroin performed by Lou Reed you sound pretentious because you can't spell properly. big words and no spell check equals collective shudder by alot of learned people. tchaikovsky? | Reviewer: Anonymous ------ About the song Heroin performed by Lou Reed and who wrote The Rite of Spring? not Tchaikovsky but Stravinsky. Both of Russian descent but a world apart... TRUTH BE TOLD | Reviewer: Anonymous ------ About the song Strawman performed by Lou Reed I wish everybody in this country the United States of America would here this song just once.With all the backstabbing ,lieing,cheating here a whole lot of people would say to themselves.Hey that's me.Would they stop there decieving strawman way's? Probably not.But it might make them stop and think what there doing to themselves and others. PEACE!!! Caroline SaysII | Reviewer: Anonymous ------ About the song Caroline Says II performed by Lou Reed I give this song a 10. It is well crafted. Not over produced like songs are today. Heroin, an anti-anthem for the acid generation | Reviewer: RIXXX! ------ About the song Heroin performed by Lou Reed In the year of our lord 1966 the world of popular music exploded with explicit or covert reverences to the delights of so called 'psychedelic'drugs like mariuanah and LSD. From The Beatles Got To Get You Into My Life to Frank Zappa's return of The Son of Monster Magnet, and from The Lovin ' Spoonfuls Daydream to Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Woman, they all displayed, almost as commercial advertisements, the pleasures of mind altering substances, preferably consumed somewhere in the happy happy joy joy society of the counterculture somewhere in sunny California. On the other side of the universe, down in New York city, young songwriters and bohemians Lou Reed and John Cale were allready putting together a band that would later be infamous as The Velvet underground, cynically named after a little cultnovel about S&M practices. The Velvets, who by then had allready joined the circus of drop outs and misfits in Andy Warhols Factory entourage, however, were far ahead of their time in their misapproval of the substitute nirvanas and pseudo mysticism offered by the fuzzy philosophies of people such as Timothy Leary and Ken Casey and the naive hippy dippy babbling about revolution and love. Their musical and lyrical expressions were not about love peace and flowers or descriptions of chemically enhanced trips to the paradise within, but more inspired by the hard alienating life at the bottom of the cultural foodchain. Prostitution, crossdressing, sado-masochism, social unease, and suicide were their topics,(long before punkrock claimed them as their favorit idiom,) and offcourse the drug of choice for every lost soul who was litterally dying to rather implode than to expand the mind and the consciousness, and so be relieved from the agony of existance: heroin. Having experience with the Dark Queen themselves and heavily under the influence of writers like William Burroughs and Arthur Rimbaud, Reed and Cale took the metaphorical syringe and spoon by hand and cooked up the song that almost four decades later still stands as the anti-anthem for an entire generation. Does The Beatles ' Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds ironically hold the scepter for being the ultimate 1960's popsong about the beautiful visions that hallucinatic drugs,especially LSD can create (ironically because the song was originally intended to be about a drawing by John Lennon's infant son Julian,and so an ode to the uninhibited childhood imagination, only later the band discovered it's coincidental initials, of which they naturally had a good laugh!), Heroin, expresses the pain and dispare, the Nitschian Death of God, the contempt for authority and society, but also the complete comfort in numbness, of the opiate experience. Switching from the exact realistic description of the 'fix', to the poetic hallowing of the feelings of freedom in solitude,and extatic nihilistic estrangement, Reed and Cale offer the ignorant listener an almost exhibitionist peep into the mind of the heroin user. By shooting the drug into the vein the 'I' figure kills God and therefore becomes God, immaculate and invincible to the slings and arrows of the big bad world outside. As enlightning as disilusionating as a near dead experience the heroin flash is offered as the closest step to suicide, a way out of the ordinary life which can only bring but misery and grief. The 'I' person beatifically "doesn't know and doesn't care anymore". Embracing Death is no longer a frightful thing, it's a free choice for redemption. Absolutely counterpointing the standard late sixties musicians' attempt at vaguely depicting the euphoric fairytales and myths of the 'psychedelic' experience. The bittersweet'n sour musical performance of Heroin in the Velvet's version is the perfect shroud for the lyrics. The two chord guitar drone, accompanied by the pounding drums (barely no cymbals were used) and the haunting, hysterical, dissonant, screeching of John Cale's viola, together with Lou Reed's sneering,cynical, sheer diabolical, or perhaps purgatorial vocals, and the whole song irratticly, constantly, nervously changing in tempo and intensity, gives the song that ominous edge it deserves. The listener is mercylessly dragged into the blissful oblivion and indifference, as well as the selfinflicted insanity and desperation, no matter how contradicting, of the 'I' person. As an icon of 1960's artistic expression Heroin should be forever revered as a classic example of universal songwriting, stretching the limits of fixed (sic) form and content, and through the generations up to date it is still apprased. The darkest side of the power of this song being that it obviously appeals to the easily influencible among us to try the drug or even justify addiction. And so this song, as many songs, has it's victims. Lou Reed and John Cale themselves have been through the horrors of being a smack fiend. It nearly killed them and left wounds on their minds and bodies they will never in eternity be able to recover from. "She is not a Lady I would dance with again, no matter how beautiful, seductive and yet comforting she looks". Nevertheless as a piece of high art from a generation as intense as the one coming of age in the late sixties and early seventies, as well as a source of musical and lyrical inspiration for what later would be called the Punk Movement, Heroin stands as an unique work, allthough being 'just a rock song' it is in it's own right undisputably as genious and intrigueing as grand classic compositons as Wagners Gotterdammerung and Tchaikovski's Rites of Spring, alongside other masterpieces in the same genre as The Rolling Stones' Jumping Jack Flash and John Lennon's Cold Turkey. RIXXX! 31-7-2004 Buy the album | Reviewer: Anonymous ------ About the song Sex With Your Parents (Motherfucker) Part II performed by Lou Reed this song is brilliant fucking genius | Reviewer: Mark Breen ------ About the song The Day John Kennedy Died performed by Lou Reed lou reed, a modern day rock poet with a sharp tongue and a creative sence of lyrics. A very undervalued artist who has influenced such artists as u2 natural born killers david byrne and david bowie certaintly an avid fan since the days of the velvet underground.. This man is purley about emotion nothing is left out of his music, with his unique soothing voice that sounds like no other it makes such songs like nyc man and ledgendary hearts what they are. He has always done his own thing and his fans have followed him throughout from the dispair of "Berlin" to the one off tribute to Edgar Allan poe "The raven" A refreshing change to a time where soft porn artists are taking the credit for good music. I use the word good loosley but never when talking about this man!! Real Rock and Roll Opera | Reviewer: Anonymous ------ About the song Street Hassle performed by Lou Reed Street Hassle is one of the saddest songs ever written, one of the best uses of a viola, and a truly incredible story of love and loss. This song will never start a happenin' party, but it will reduce a sensitive soul to tears. Told in 3 parts, it swings round to touch the underbelly of the under-class and the outcast, from 15 year old heroin addicts to old ladies with too many cats. Just listen to it. It is seminal music. You could review the artist/band Lou Reed in Biography page You could review Lou Reed album by visiting Albums page and selecting an album You could review Lou Reed song by clicking the song which you like | | ||||||||||
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