Above: Remembering Lou Reed
TORONTO — Lou Reed, who died Sunday at 71, gave the world unforgettable lyrics during a career that lasted nearly half a century. His discography includes a dozen albums from The Velvet Underground and twice as many more as a solo artist.
Whether he was opining that “life is like Sanskrit read to a pony,” celebrating heroin (“It makes me feel like I’m a man when I put a spike into my vein,” he sang), or explaining his 2011 collaboration with Metallica (“I could do anything I want. They could do anything they want. We chose to do this as a project we wanted to do. Something beautiful. Period. It’s not complicated,” he told Vanity Fair before hanging up on the reporter), Reed had a way with words.
Here are a handful of memorable lyrical moments from Reed:
“Heroin, be the death of me / Heroin, it’s my wife and it’s my life / Because a mainer to my vein / Leads to a center in my head / And then I’m better off than dead.”
– from “Heroin”
“Oh, it’s such a perfect day / I’m glad I spend it with you / Oh, such a perfect day / You just keep me hanging on … Just a perfect day / You made me forget myself / I thought I was someone else, someone good.”
– from “Perfect Day”
“Some people like to go out dancing / And other people, (like us) they gotta work / And there’s always some evil mothers / They’ll tell you life is full of dirt / And the women never really faint, and the villans always blink their eyes / And the children are the only ones who blush / ‘Cause life is just to die.”
– from “Sweet Jane”
“Candy came from out on the Island / In the backroom she was everybody’s darlin’ / But she never lost her head / Even when she was giving head / She says, Hey babe / Take a walk on the wild side.”
– from “Walk on the Wild Side”
“Sometimes I feel so happy / Sometimes I feel so sad / Sometimes I feel so happy / But mostly you just make me mad / Baby, you just make me mad.”
– from “Pale Blue Eyes”
“‘Cause, you know some day, man / You gotta stand up straight unless you’re gonna fall / Then you’re gone to die / And the straightest dude I ever knew was standing right for me all the time.”
– from “Coney Island Baby”
“You can’t depend on the goodly hearted / The goodly hearted made lamp-shades and soap / You can’t depend on the Sacrament / No Father, no Holy Ghost / You can’t depend on any churches / Unless there’s real estate you want to buy / You can’t depend on a lot of things / You need a busload of faith to get by.”
– from “Busload of Faith”
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