TRICKS OF THE TALE

When regarding the decidedly colourful back catalogue of the late Lou Reed, the phrase ‘all of human life is here’ springs to mind. Staged against a uniquely urban backdrop, Reed would habitually pick at the persistent scab of human frailty, shine white light upon darkness and generate searing white heat in the process. In Reed’s world, emotions were raw. His dramatis personae personified facets of his own complex personality. The darkest desires of his darkest characters – from the sexually transgressive (Venus In Furs) to the purely evil (Rock Minuet) – and the simple sentimentality of the unreconstructed romantic (Coney Island Baby, My House) mirrored Reed’s intrinsic duality.

So who was Lou Reed? Many of his songs formed the core of an unwritten autobiography:) to ruined adolescence () and beyond, Reed’s essence endures in his art. With an accumulated writing style that was one part poet (Delmore Schwartz), one part Tin Pan Alley (Doc Pomus) and one part gossip (Andy Warhol), Reed wrote stories so painfully real that rock’n’roll still bears their scars.