Lou Reed & The Velvet Undergroud by Diana Clapton

Author:Diana Clapton [Clapton, Diana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-85712-757-0
Publisher: Music Sales Limited
Published: 2012-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Shooting up in Winterland Michael Zagaris

Joseph Sia

During the critical assaults on Berlin, Lou had decided that almost all rock critics were his natural enemies. They complained that he had sold out his arty cult roots when Wild Side was commercially successful. When he returned to a more complex and deeply felt style, they complained that he was no fun, and much too neurotic to relate to everyday life. “Who cares about critics?” was one of his more printable replies. “Berlin was an album for adults.”

Some critics came to change their minds about Berlin. The album has been judged a sort of masterpiece, and there has been a steady demand for its re-release. Rare copies fetch about $45 in oldies emporiums. Its songs and emotions have stood the test of a decade. The man was always ahead of his time.

The emotional devastation of the album was not confined to its audience. Even as Bob Ezrin recovered from studio psychosis, his personal life suffered. And then Betty left Lou. General opinion is that Betty was a sane, right thinking person who could not understand the obsession with drugs, despair and suicide. Those who met her commented on her niceness and her all-American short blonde hair. Many felt that she had tried to build a cozy nest for Lou, from which he would not be compelled to stroll to the liquor store every night.

“For a while,” his friend Ed McCormack wrote in Changes, “it seemed like self-preservation, but eventually he realised it was the worst thing in the world. The girl he had married wasn’t trying to save him — she was trying to housebreak him.” Yet during their marriage many had commented on how much more at peace with himself Lou seemed. Others were pissed at the possibility of their favourite leather boy, closet queen, drug fiend, apostate of anarchy and whatever other black sheep Lou had been impersonating losing his edge. When he commented in interviews that certain segments of his audience felt they owned him, he had it nailed.

At any rate, Lou tucked his dragon’s tail into his leather jeans and headed out on tour, ready to give his fans the fearsome rock and roll they clearly desired above all else.

The morose, powerful songs of the Berlin album and Ezrin’s intricate arrangements lodged in his heart. Later on Lou would incorporate Caroline Says, Oh Jim, Men of Good Fortune, The Kids and Sad Song into his stage show. “Berlin was a big flop, and it made me very sad,” he told a packed house at New York’s Bottom Line five years later. “I warn you now, this is the depressing part of the show …” Some of his rowdier later audiences, depressingly, are most roused by the rage of “Anyone else would have broken both of her arms …” without considering the careful characterization that precedes it.

The florid cinematic images of Berlin impressed lifetime admirers. Andy Warhol announced his desire to make it into a musical comedy starring Lorna Luft, though the project has gone unrealised.

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