7 songs to remember Lou Reed (1942-2013)

In each one of them portrays a facet of his personality, so that we explored from your side, more irreverent and in “Walk On the Wild Side” and “Rock & Roll” up to his side more tender and romantic in ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror” and “Satellite of Love”.

We review in addition to themes of her solo career as a stage next to The Velvet Underground, the group that knew how to lead from the mid-sixties, and it ended up strongly related to Andy Warhol.

“I’ll Be Your Mirror”

According to biographer Victor Bockris, Lou wrote the song for Nico (Christa Päffgen), who was tasked to sing it on the album The Velvet Underground & Nico . Apparently, the musician and poet decided to compose this piece after that she was near him at the end of a concert in 1965 and tell him: “Oh, Lou, I’ll be your mirror”. According to many close to the rocker, this song was one of their favorite and that’s why he often played with his band. More still, after Nico left the band in late 1967, the voices in vivo of the song always made imitating the accent of German Päffgen.

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“Satellite of Love”

Lou was not easy at all encouraged to do solo songs at the beginning of the 70s, but thanks to his work with David Bowie as a producer, he managed to record this hymn luminous full of glam and rock with arrangements for piano, claps and vocals . And is that the Duke White provided vocals for the single. In 2003, Reed acknowledged (via The Guardian ): “I loved [chorus] when you had them on my hard drive. It is not the kind of part that would have occurred to me, but David hears these fragments, in addition to have a weird voice, and he can climb as high and do that. It is very, very beautiful.”

“Perfect Day”

This topic has become one of the most acclaimed career American composer. Some critics argue that the key to the success of this work is in its letter, so sweet and so ambiguous that we never makes it clear if you are talking about a crush, or on the use of a drug as heavy as the heroin . The sound level, the arrangement of Mick Ronson and the piano part so exceptional are details that make this ballad in a classic rock of the TWENTIETH century.

“Coney Island Baby”

Perhaps one of the love songs most well-known of his career, which in turn came to become a symbol for the LGBT movement, because by then Lou posed for various magazines next to his girlfriend Rachel Humphreys (born as Tommy) . In the lyrics of this piece he sings: “But remember the princess who lived on the hill/ Who loved you even though she knew you were wrong/ And right now she just might eat shining through” (But remember the princess who lived on the hill / he loved you even though I knew that you were wrong / And now you could come to shine”.

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“Smalltown”

In this topic, Reed joins John Cale after meeting at the memorial of Andy Warhol and decide to write this elegy to his former creative partner . For such a task, they decided to rely only on their voices, a piano, a guitar and a viola. Without neglecting his raw style, Lou and his old colleague would pay tribute to that young man, the son of immigrants Slovaks came out of Pittsburgh (a small town) and was able to become a myth of the pop culture force of discipline, ambition, and talent.

“Rock & Roll”

Although this song was originally released on the album Loaded the Velvet Underground in 1970, Reed incorporated it into his repertoire as a soloist in the years to come due to how much she liked to interpret it. In its lyrics tells the story of Jenny, a girl whose “life was saved by the rock”. However, the Reed later confess that in truth it was a piece very autobiographical: “It’s about me. If I hadn’t heard rock and roll on the radio, would have had no idea that there was life in this world” . He further explained that neither the movie nor the tv opened the head, only the music made it.

“Walk on the Wild Side”

This composition full of rebellion arose after the leader of the Velvet is commissioned to do the music for the adaptation on Broadway from the novel by Nelson He entitled To Walk on the Wild Side . And despite the fact that this play is not finally materialize, he worked with Bowie on the quality of producer, and he pulled out this single which became their only hit to reach the top 10 in the United Kingdom. The theme is inspired on the whole community of queer and diverse that Reed met at the famous Factory of Warhol.

Lou Reed (Playlist)