(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sun 9 November 2025 21:00, UK
Lou Reed wasn’t a man who doled out praise easily, but for the artists who cut the mustard in his estimation, you could count on the New York songsmith for an accolade both sincere yet delivered in his uniquely curt tongue.
It said a lot about Reed’s love of creative innovation and an ear forever to the musical ground that the last significant gift to the world before his death in 2013 was a glowing long-form review of Kanye West’s Yeezus in The Guardian, celebrating the electronic stinger of a rap album as “Majestic and inspiring”.
Plenty of rock and pop’s biggest names would face his acidic potshots, however, Frank Zappa, Roxy Music, and The Doors all in his sights at various points, if surrounded by conflicting statements smattered across his many fickle interviews and press appearances.
Such a capricious U-turn almost took place within the same interview. Speaking to journalist Paul Zollo in 1991, a seemingly unlikely songwriter was picked by Reed as possessing an enviable lyrical pen. “To me, someone who writes really good songs is Randy Newman,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who write good songs. Now Randy might not go out on stage and knock you out, or knock your socks off. And he’s not going to get people thrilled in the front row. He ain’t gonna do that”.
He stressed, however, “But he’s gonna write a better song than most people who can do it. You know, he’s got that down to an art. Now Randy knows music. He knows music. But it doesn’t get any better than ‘Louisiana’ or ‘Sail Away’. It doesn’t get any better than that”.
It may appear an improbable fandom. On the face of it, the acerbic lyrical reporter moulded from The Velvet Underground’s avant-garde New York factory happenings with Andy Warhol seem worlds apart from the voice behind ‘Short People’. But, both Reed and Newman dwell in the largely urban milieu, examining the society around them with a degree of satire and subversion that can come as a shock to newcomers only familiar with Newman’s ‘You’ve Got a Friend in Me’ for Toy Story.
Still, in characteristic fashion, Reed added a cooler assessment of the ‘I Love LA’ singer. “I admire him, but I never listen to him. I know he’s very bright, and I know the lyrics are good, but they’re not for me, they’re just not for me. If I had to say something, I’d say he tries too hard. But you’ve got to understand, the only lyrics that I really think are fantastic, what I’m talking about, fantastic, is Dylan”.
Reed’s undying love for Bob Dylan is well covered, but perhaps Reed’s slippery appraisal of Newman reveals a deeper admiration. Reaching his arm through all the differences in tone and handling of humour to find an artist that gave the ever mordant Reed a run for his money with a similar prickly statement on the human condition.
While sharing billing at 1985’s Farm Aid, along with the beloved Dylan, one can’t help but wonder what magic could have been bottled with a co-writing collaboration had the two headed to the studio together.
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