The meaning of Lou, first draft — RIP, Lou Reed

All our heroes eventually die.

I’ve always known this. Hearing of John Lennon’s death that late fall night when I was 18 only underscored this, followed by the deaths of others – Bob Marley, Tommie Agee, Dave DeBusschere, Howard Zinn. Jim Carroll. George Harrison. Hunter Thompson. Robert Creeley. Allen Ginsberg.

This is part of the natural order.

And yet, the news this afternoon from New York that Lou Reeddied has thrown me for a loop.

More than most of the others I mentioned, Lou Reed is deeply enmeshed in the way I view myself as an artist. Lou – and he is Lou to those of us who have listened to his music and been affected by his art – have little in common. He was far more adventurous than I ever could be, far more talented – a visionary, really. But that sense that there are no boundaries, that you lay everything on the line in your songs, that you engage with the artistic process so deeply that the art that comes out of you is both so beautiful that it hurts and so painful that it takes you to another plane – that is something to which the artist in me aspires.

I discovered Lou in college, at Penn State. I’d heard “Walk on the Wild Side” and “Rock and Roll” and “Sweet Jane,” loved the songs, but never fully grasped them. I was working at the radio station in my dorm complex at the time – WEHR – and came across a strange and wonderful and often unlistenable album called Take No Prisoners. It was pissed-off Lou, part bad comedy album, part live presentation of Lou’s music at that moment. It should have sent me running, but his aggressive attempts to chase away his audience actually attracted me. As did the record sleeve, which called him “The Godfather of Punk.”

Shortly after, I bought a two-record compilation, The Diary of Lou Reed, which summed his work up from his time with The Velvet Underground – the single most important American band in rock history – through the late 1970s. I bought Street Hassle – an amazing, if now dated, record with Velvet echoes. And I traded Diary for a copy of Loaded, bought the full run of Velvet albums and so on. That happened within months.

What made Lou so important was the sense of excess crossed with his sense of desperation. There was a searching quality in everything he did. Lou was not about easy pop songs, but not because he disliked pop music. There is ample evidence to the contrary, even in the material he recorded with the Velvets.

It was because nothing was easy with Lou Reed. There were the personal demons – the drug and alcohol abuse, the violent relationships – and the public bouts with uncertainty. Much of the 1970s were lost to both, though individual performances during this time period are worth listening to. Transformer is uncertain, but beautiful. Berlin is a masterful, painful record. Street Hassle, as I said, is powerful and dated. The Bells is transfixing. And the rest from that time period – well, some were flawed or cynical or toss-offs, but all contained a song or songs that make them still worth turning to, even today.

Then came 1982. Lou Reed released The Blue Mask. All bets were off. The Blue Mask was something whole and harsh and painful and fresh and visionary. Lou put it all on that piece of vinyl – love and hate for his wife, for himself, for the poet Delmore Schwartz. It was tender and violent. It had Robert Quine thrashing with his ax and Lou once again playing the guitar, the two making a brutal, cathartic noise. Fernando Saunders was there, with his dive-bombing, poetic bass, and the unheralded Doane Perry on drums.

The two albums that followed – Legendary Hearts and New Sensations – were nearly as good and completed a triptyche of transformation. Lou would be good again – New York, Songs for Drella, Ecstasy – but never quite so good.

But this is not really getting at the issue. Lou, for me and I suspect for many others who write or paint or sing, is more than the sum of his many many albums. Lou gave us permission to experiment and explore, with sounds, with substances, with words and images and personas. Every time I put pen to paper, Lou is there, reminding me not to hold back. Too often, I fail to live up to his prodding. Too often, I fall far short of the artist I should be.

What Lou Reed brought to the table was art. No. It was Art, capitalized. He wanted to do more than just make a rock album or a pop album, and if that led him astray sometimes — The Raven, the operas and theater productions, that awful record with Metallica — that is fine. Great art requires the artist to take a chance and not just fail, but to fail spectacularly, because when you take that kind of chance you also have that chance to create the truly memorable, the truly important. To make great Art. Like the four Velvet Underground albums. Like Berlin. Like The Blue Mask.

And you inspire those who follow. That is Lou’s legacy — it is a grand, public one and one I take very personally. To say that a little part of me died today may not be fair to Lou Reed, to his family or his fans, but that is how it feels. Lou will always be a part of my artistic consciousness, prodding me along.

And for that, I am eternally grateful. Rest in Peace, Lou,