{"id":522285,"date":"2026-06-28T07:11:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/522285\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T07:11:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:11:13","slug":"laurie-anderson-on-lou-reed-he-said-ill-get-on-a-plane-right-now-we-got-married-the-next-day-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/522285\/","title":{"rendered":"Laurie Anderson on Lou Reed: \u2018He said, I\u2019ll get on a plane right now. We got married the next day\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The day before we talk, on the anniversary of her wedding to the late Lou Reed<\/a>, Laurie Anderson<\/a> woke up in Paris<\/a> with his song Sunday Morning ringing in her head. <\/p>\n

She recites the words: \u201c\u2018Sunday morning, and I\u2019m falling. I got a feeling I don\u2019t want to know. Early dawning, Sunday morning, it\u2019s all the streets you crossed, not so long ago.\u2019 And, you know, it ends up with such a great line,\u201d she says. \u201c\u2018Watch out. The world\u2019s behind you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson never planned to get married, she says, \u201cbut I was trudging along a dusty road in Colorado, I was on tour, and I was talking to Lou [on the phone], and I said, \u2018There\u2019s so many things I never did. I never learned Greek. I never went to Egypt. I never got married.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cLou really loved the idea of marriage. He said, \u2018I\u2019ll get on a plane right now.\u2019 And he did. We got married the next day. We were together for 21 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike many marriages, it was very wonderful, very complicated. So [yesterday] I thought, \u2018Here I am in Paris. It\u2019s my anniversary. I\u2019ve been celebrating alone for quite a while. I\u2019m going to celebrate with some other people tonight …\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd because he did his very last concert in Paris, I had so many images of him walking along the street in his long black coat. I could just see him \u2026 What a great chance to celebrate love, and also, at the same time, death. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, and the tradition that I\u2019m in, that\u2019s the purpose of death: the release of love. And I could really feel that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Before this interview, it was gently suggested to me that, going by previous experience, Anderson might not want to talk about Lou Reed. I hadn\u2019t been planning to mention him. Anderson is, after all, an equally important cultural figure. <\/p>\n

In 1981 she had a huge pop hit with O Superman, a wonderfully avant-garde pop song contained on her album Big Science. But she is also a pioneer of electronic music, of spoken word, of film-making and of multimedia art. <\/p>\n

\"LouLou Reed and Laurie Anderson in New York in 2005. Photograph: Patrick McMullan\/Getty <\/p>\n

She has been an artist-in-residence at Nasa<\/a>. She has performed concerts designed for dogs. I saw her perform once, at Borris House Festival of Writing & Ideas, in 2022, improvising with the Irish musician and broadcaster Fiachna \u00d3 Braon\u00e1in<\/a>; he was clutching a large recorder while Anderson used a sampler app on her phone.<\/p>\n

She brings up Reed\u2019s anniversary unprompted as she speaks over the phone from France. In her worldview there\u2019s no demarcation between life, art, politics and love. This comes out of her interest in Buddhism. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t draw any lines,\u201d she says. \u201cBeing an artist and a Buddhist are exactly the same for me. Fortunately, Buddhism doesn\u2019t require you to believe anything, and nobody\u2019s in charge. This is like crack for an artist. \u2018I\u2019m in charge? Okay. I\u2019ll take it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She is, at the moment, practising how to \u201cfeel sad without being sad \u2026 This is a very, very useful distinction, because there are many sad things in the world. If you pretend that they\u2019re not there you\u2019re an idiot.\u201d <\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a qualifier, she says. \u201cWe are here not to suffer. We\u2019re here to have a really, really, really, really good time. That\u2019s the whole point. I tell myself this 10 times a day: Feel it. Don\u2019t be it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson has also become quite interested in Mary Magdalene, whom she found, to her surprise, fitted perfectly in a Buddhist tradition. <\/p>\n

\"LaurieLaurie Anderson on stage in Amsterdam in 1982, the year her influential and critically acclaimed album Big Science was released. Photograph: Rob Verhorst\/Redferns <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat all of these different translations are revealing is that she was saying that this kingdom of freedom, of truth and goodness, is accessible through your mind \u2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not talking about access [to knowledge] through the pope or through the priests or through anybody … This was not good news for people who want to go through the channels of power.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s good news, however, for someone like Anderson, \u201cwho is very attracted to this idea that we live only in the present and no one\u2019s in charge and it is through our minds that we can access everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of her big influences was the composer John Cage, who was obsessed with randomness and musical processes and how they mark the passage of time. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe got a lot of things from Buddhism, as many American artists did in the 1950s. People came from Japan. They came back from India, where their minds had been blown by their teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lot of these composers began experimenting with hypnotic drones. \u201cThis was a huge influence on me,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd it also influenced, for example, Philip Glass<\/a> and a wonderful artist who I recently heard in Knoxville, Charlemagne Palestine, and [William] Basinski<\/a> with his \u2018disintegration loops\u2019. <\/p>\n

\"LaurieLaurie Anderson performs with Philip Glass at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2017. Photograph: Rebecca Smeyne\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

\u201cListening to them is a way of really freeing my mind and letting things go \u2026 I grew up with music that was changing its mind every four bars. With Beethoven you\u2019re happy, you\u2019re sad, you\u2019re depressed. There\u2019s a lot of emotion packed into these things, but it\u2019s also very histrionic in ways.\u201d <\/p>\n

She pauses. <\/p>\n

\u201cNot that I don\u2019t love that stuff. I love all music \u2013 with one exception, and that\u2019s musicals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why musicals? Anderson laughs. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I hear a musical I have a nervous breakdown. In fact, I was trapped in one [recently], and after about five minutes I had a very strange heart situation. My blood pressure dropped to almost nothing, and I ran to the bathroom and I fainted. <\/p>\n

\u201cA friend scraped me off the floor and put me in an emergency truck to the hospital. I\u2019m sure there are many wonderful musicals. I just have a blind spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018We do not have free speech in the United States any more. You cannot say the word \u2018genocide\u2019 or you will be cancelled\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Laurie Anderson<\/p>\n

How has her approach to art changed? \u201cI\u2019m not the kind of artist who wants to express myself,\u201d she says. \u201cThat was never my goal. I don\u2019t care if you know me \u2026 I\u2019m somebody who likes to point and say, \u2018Look over there. That\u2019s a weird plant I\u2019ve never seen before. What\u2019s going on? Why is that happening?\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cI always did that, and it hasn\u2019t really changed that much, sad to say. At various times it becomes more about one thing than another. There are various shifts. At times like this I will become more political, my own version of political.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republic of Love, the show she is bringing to the National Concert Hall<\/a> in Dublin shortly with the jazz band Sexmob and some other musical guests, is an exploration of the current state of the US. It involves spoken word and music and reimaginings of works by Anderson, Reed, Bob Dylan<\/a>, William Burroughs<\/a> and Gertrude Stein<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt started in Vienna last spring,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cThey were doing a big festival of music and dance and theatre and literature. And the theme of the festival was the rise of fascism in Europe. They asked me to come and do a two-hour talk about government and love. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I was, like, whoa, I don\u2019t often get assignments like this, but what a great time to talk about \u2018stories\u2019. Yesterday our megalomaniacal leader posted himself as a huge Jesus helping a sick person. And then when people said, \u2018That\u2019s a little over the top,\u2019 he said the pope is not good for the market. And then his next post was an image of Trump Tower on the moon. What a moment to be an artist!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes there\u2019s blowback for being outspoken, Anderson says. \u201cI have been cancelled in Germany. It\u2019s very painful to be doxed and accused of anti-Semitism [for criticising Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza]. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not have free speech in the United States any more. You cannot say the word \u2018genocide\u2019 or you will be cancelled. You can\u2019t say anything that isn\u2019t praise for Israel. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my heroes at the moment is [Jorge Luis] Borges, who said \u2018censorship is the mother of metaphor\u2019. I\u2019ve always used that as a way to speak in code to people. But I\u2019m dropping some of those codes these days.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LaurieLaurie Anderson: ‘[I use AI] all the time. I do lots of things with it. It\u2019s also extremely dangerous.’ Photograph: Ebru Yildiz <\/p>\n

The right have \u201ctaken the reins of the stories, and they\u2019re riding really hard. So you better get a good story, or you better be able to see through theirs. It\u2019s a story war.\u201d<\/p>\n

How important is collaboration for Anderson? \u201cI\u2019m trying to make a lot of room for the musicians [in this show], because they\u2019re all composers. They all have their own ways of thinking about music, making it, presenting it … <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel so lucky to get to play with these people, because they have new ideas every night. And it just happens organically. I really love improv. I used to hate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why? \u201cBecause my shows had a lot of elements in them, and they were timed, and it got a little on the rigid side,\u201d she says. So the composer and musician John Zorn \u201csays, \u2018Hey, do you want to do an improv show?\u2019 I was, like, \u2018I don\u2019t know. What does that mean? Who starts?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he says, \u2018It depends.\u2019 I said, \u2018Well, what key?\u2019 and he says, \u2018I don\u2019t know. Let\u2019s see.\u2019 I thought, \u2018This sounds like a very bad idea,\u2019 but we started, and I was, like, \u2018I\u2019m free.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Anderson takes that spirit into everything now, she says. \u201cYou and I are talking right now. We\u2019re just coming up with things that are based on what the other person\u2019s saying and going back and forth. I love conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I think it\u2019s always good to remember that you really don\u2019t need anything except a way to be inside yourself and be expansive\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Laurie Anderson<\/p>\n

She has long been an early adopter of new technology. At the beginning of the pandemic, Anderson was an artist-in-residence at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning, in Adelaide, experimenting with what was, at the time, the world\u2019s largest language supercomputer. She used it to, among other things, reinterpret the Bible. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe three languages that make up the Bible \u2013 Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek \u2013 you can control how much of each language will be used in each translation \u2026 The question was, if you emphasise the Greek, would the Bible be more rational? If you emphasise the Hebrew translation, would it be more mystical?\u201d <\/p>\n

They also mixed it up with everything Anderson herself had \u201cever written or muttered\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey sent me a 9,000-page book: the Bible according to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is fascinated by Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s use of AI<\/a> in his memes. \u201cHe is using it to very effective ends in his world, and creating this fantasy world that has nothing to do with anything.\u201d <\/p>\n

Anderson uses artificial intelligence \u201call the time. I do lots of things with it. It\u2019s also extremely dangerous. I have another teacher who\u2019s always quoting a cryptologist who said, \u2018If you think technology is going to solve your problems, you don\u2019t understand technology and you don\u2019t understand your problems\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LaurieLaurie Anderson during her Music for Dogs concert at the Sydney Opera House in 2010, which almost 1,000 dog-lovers and their pets attended: Photograph: Greg Wood\/AFP\/Getty <\/p>\n

But she thinks AI is too big a subject to generalise about. \u201cIt\u2019s like when people say stuff about the United States. It\u2019s not a small place. There\u2019s 340-plus million people with a lot of different attitudes. It\u2019s important to keep in mind only 70 million of those voted for the current king. And a lot of them are going, \u2018Oh, I think I might have made a colossal mistake.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

At 79, Anderson is still ridiculously prolific. Does she ever get creatively blocked? \u201cEveryone does,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I feel stuck I just try to relax and go, \u2018So what?\u2019 It makes me look around at where I am that moment, and that will give me, maybe not ideas for things, but a sense of, \u2018Wow, I\u2019m here. I\u2019m not living in the future. I\u2019m in this room doing this thing right now.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are always thinking they don\u2019t have enough. And I think it\u2019s always good to remember that you really don\u2019t need anything except a way to be inside yourself and be expansive.\u201d <\/p>\n

And then, on cue, she says, \u201cWow, the sun just came out. Oh my God, this is the greatest town in the world. The sun just came blasting out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perspectives: Laurie Anderson with Sexmob \u2013 Republic of Love is at the National Concert Hall<\/a>, in Dublin, on Saturday, July 11th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The day before we talk, on the anniversary of her wedding to the late Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[218,9002,321,969,93,69998,222610,61,60,222608,195455,91,116442,180020,222609,164425],"class_list":["post-522285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-bob-dylan","tag-celebrities","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-fiachna-o-braonain","tag-gertrude-stein","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-laurie-anderson","tag-lou-reed","tag-nasa","tag-national-concert-hall","tag-philip-glass","tag-william-basinski","tag-william-s-burroughs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}