{"id":498608,"date":"2026-06-27T19:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T19:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/498608\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T19:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T19:06:14","slug":"heres-six-reasons-why-lou-reed-is-a-storytelling-master","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/498608\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s six reasons why Lou Reed is a storytelling master"},"content":{"rendered":"

When regarding the decidedly colourful back catalogue of the late Lou Reed<\/a>, the phrase \u2018all of human life is here\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

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\"The\n<\/p>\n

The original version of this feature appeared in Classic Rock 264, in June 2019. <\/p>\n

In Reed\u2019s world, emotions were raw. His dramatis personae personified facets of his own complex personality. The darkest desires of his darkest characters \u2013 from the sexually transgressive (Venus In Furs) to the purely evil (Rock Minuet) \u2013 and the simple sentimentality of the unreconstructed romantic (Coney Island Baby, My House) mirrored Reed\u2019s intrinsic duality.<\/p>\n

So who was Lou Reed<\/a>? Many of his songs formed the core of an unwritten autobiography: from idyllic infancy (Egg Cream) to ruined adolescence (Kill Your Sons) and beyond, Reed\u2019s 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\u2019n\u2019roll still bears their scars.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n

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\"Classic\n<\/p>\n

THE GIFT<\/p>\n

Eventually appearing on the Velvet Underground<\/a>\u2019s second album White Light\/White Heat, released in 1968, darkly comedic spoken-word short story The Gift dates from \u201964. Reed recalled: \u201cI wrote this [in] my last year at Syracuse University, where I was an English major. John Cale<\/a> suggested we set it to music. We put the story on stereo left and the music on stereo right so you could listen to one or the other or both.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Velvets jam in support, a deadpan Cale recites the macabre tale of what transpired when lovelorn Waldo Jeffers mailed himself to Marsha Bronson inside a large cardboard box. Part-Hitchcock, part-E.C. Comics, the final grisly denouement involves the fateful plunge of a sheet metal cutter that causes \u2018little rhythmic arcs of red to pulsate gently in the morning sun\u2019.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

I\u2019M WAITING FOR THE MAN<\/p>\n

A defining moment in rock\u2019n\u2019roll, Reed\u2019s tale of copping $26 worth of heroin uptown in Harlem on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street transported the gritty verit\u00e9 style of Nelson Algren and Hubert Selby Jr from the printed page on to vinyl.<\/p>\n

The song\u2019s protagonist, most probably Reed himself, feels \u2018sick and dirty, more dead than alive\u2019. As he clucks impatiently, conspicuous, out of place, he draws attention (\u2018Hey white boy, what you doin\u2019 uptown?\u2019), before The Man \u2013 his dealer \u2013 finally arrives (\u2018all dressed in black\u2019, with \u2018PR shoes and a big straw hat\u2019). So what exactly are \u2018PR shoes\u2019? \u201cPuerto Rican fence-climbers\u201d according to Lou. So now you know. And there\u2019s a happy ending. Our hero ultimately gets his fix and we leave him temporarily elated: \u2018Feeling good, feeling oh so fine… Until tomorrow, but that\u2019s just some other time.\u2019<\/p>\n

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I’m Waiting For The Man – YouTube
\n\"I'm<\/p>\n

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\nPERFECT DAY<\/p>\n

Simple, concise, practically perfect in every way. Perfect Day is a succinct pr\u00e9cis of idealised love that seasoned Reed-watchers \u2013 reluctant to accept that he would ever deliver a romantic ballad without a sneering side of whisky-embittered cynicism \u2013 spent decades trying to convince the wider world was actually about heroin use.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not true,\u201d Lou<\/a> said unequivocally. \u201cYou\u2019re talking to the person who wrote it.\u201d It was actually about the day that Reed proposed to his first wife, Bettye Kronstad, in Central Park, a day which, as Kronstad recalls, was far from perfect. Although Lou had already decided to propose, Bettye had just had a riding accident in the park and was severely traumatised.<\/p>\n

Despite this, Lou persisted in delivering his \u2018perfect day\u2019, even dragging his fianc\u00e9e to Tiffany\u2019s to buy a ring against her will. Perfection is clearly in the eye of the beholder. \u201cThe key to Perfect Day is the last line,\u201d Lou admitted when we spoke in 2004, \u201cYou\u2019re gonna reap what you sow.\u201d The couple divorced in 1973.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Lou Reed – Perfect Day (Official Audio) – YouTube
\n\"Lou<\/p>\n

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\nBERLIN<\/p>\n

When Alice Cooper<\/a> producer Bob Ezrin<\/a> met Reed to begin work on his third album, the follow-up to his Bowie<\/a>-produced breakthrough Transformer<\/a>, he observed that while Reed\u2019s stories had great beginnings they lacked satisfying conclusions.<\/p>\n

Citing the central romantic set-piece of Reed\u2019s self-titled solo debut, Ezrin wanted to know what happened to Berlin\u2019s central protagonists (lovers entwined in its \u2018candlelight and Dubonnet on ice\u2019 opening verse, but estranged by its \u2018I\u2019m gonna miss you now that you\u2019ve gone\u2019 chorus).<\/p>\n

Retrieving Ezrin\u2019s gauntlet, Reed used the ensuing sessions to expand Berlin to a full concept work, a dark song cycle incorporating alcoholism, addiction, spousal abuse, prostitution, depression and, ultimately, suicide. Contemporary US critics railed against Reed\u2019s \u2018lousy\u2019 (Creem) \u2018disaster\u2019 (Rolling Stone), but subsequent reassessment reveals a uniquely moving collection: a Gothic edifice of exquisite pain and sumptuous misery.<\/p>\n

Building through the heartbreaking Caroline Says II (\u2018You can hit me all you want to, but I don\u2019t love you anymore\u2019), the harrowing The Kids (\u2018They\u2019re taking her children away\u2019) and the painfully graphic The Bed (\u2018This is the place where she cut her wrists\u2019) towards Sad Song\u2019sclimactic emotional release, it leaves the listener physically and psychologically drained.<\/p>\n

In 2004, Reed likened Berlin to \u201ca Bergman or Kurosawa movie. An intense film noir… Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl.\u201d When I observed that \u2018girl slashes wrists\u2019 isn\u2019t normally part of the romantic narrative, he countered simply: \u201cThat\u2019s the point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lou Reed – Berlin (Official Audio) – YouTube
\n\"Lou<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a>
\nSTREET HASSLE<\/p>\n

Arguably Lou Reed\u2019s magnum opus, Street Hassle combines a pair of monologues over a mesmeric repeated string section figure and an impassioned \u2018love has gone away\u2019 coda written in the wake of his tumultuous three-year relationship with trans woman Rachel Humphreys. Street Hassle was the Godfather Of Punk\u2019s first artistic statement subsequent to unintentionally acquiring the title, and he rose to the occasion.<\/p>\n

Part one describes Waltzing Matilda\u2019s $80 physical dalliance with a male escort, while part two finds a drug dealer addressing the \u2018hassle\u2019 of a particularly incautious client\u2019s girlfriend fatally OD-ing before having the good grace to vacate his premises. \u2018When someone turns that blue,\u2019 observes The Man, \u2018it\u2019s a universal truth, you just know that bitch will never fuck again.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great monologue,\u201d Reed opined in \u201904. \u201cTwo monologues, really. The person acting out the first part is one way, the person in part two the polar opposite. They\u2019re not even vaguely of the same species… Based on a real incident, as my things inevitably are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Street Hassle channels John Rechy, Tennessee Williams and none-more-noir Raymond Chandler. Its first part echoes Herlihy\u2019s Midnight Cowboy, its second Selby\u2019s Last Exit To Brooklyn and its conclusion (enhanced by an uncredited spoken-word cameo from young pretender Bruce Springsteen) is an uncharacteristically passionate requiem for star-crossed love. Ultimately it\u2019s Reed\u2019s great American novel, condensed to the bone and propelled by a monumental ear-worm riff.<\/p>\n

Lou Reed – Street Hassle (Official Audio) – YouTube
\n\"Lou<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a>
\nNEW YORK<\/p>\n

Ever since Reed led us up to Harlem\u2019s \u2018Lexington and 125\u2019 to open our eyes to an unseen alternative reality, his narrative has been grounded in New York City. His songs have described characters unsung elsewhere: the transvestites and hustlers of Walk On The Wild Side, the junkies and speed freaks of Heroin and Sister Ray. But with 1989\u2019s New York<\/a> album Reed \u2013 galvanised by the ever-widening divide between the Empire City\u2019s rich and poor \u2013 sealed his position as NYC\u2019s poet laureate with a concept work of rare lyrical brilliance.<\/p>\n

Here are astute essays on the inner-city ghetto, the environment, and the gay community\u2019s resilience in the face of the AIDS epidemic, along with serial indictments of an oblivious political elite. Literate, poetic, driven and compelling, New York is Lou Reed\u2019s defining achievement as rock\u2019s greatest storyteller.<\/p>\n

The original version of this feature appeared in Classic Rock 264, in June 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When regarding the decidedly colourful back catalogue of the late Lou Reed, the phrase \u2018all of human life…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-498608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}