Lou Reed, RIP!

Was very sorry to read about the passing of Lou Reed.  It's like all the good ones are dying and there's no one coming along to take their place.

Lou Reed meant a lot to me.  Today still, more moreso as an angst-ridden Goth-hearted 15 year old, feeling all out of place and out of pace with the world, and so ... it was like Lou got that and was "singing my heart with his words".  David Bowie did that too, and Leonard Cohen, but they came later: a very short time later, sure, but Lou still preceded them.

Since my teenage BFF Robert Oliver is now a celebrity with his own TV show and everything, as a public figure, I feel I can throw his name around with impunity, so I'll tell you that it was Robert Oliver who introduced me to Lou Reed.

It was a Saturday afternoon when I got a phone call.  "You MUST come listen to this new album I've got." he said.  I wasn't much sure of Robert's musical taste, since he seemed to like Disco a little too much, but nonetheless I took two buses to his place in Lami.

It's always difficult, as a teenager, dealing with Other People's Families when all you really want is to disappear into said friend's bedroom and pay them no heed whatsoever, so I said embarrassed polite things to Robert's parents and siblings - Shelley and the little one who I always recall as Rupert, despite everyone always correcting me on that point - before shuffling off to vanish into his bedroom.

It was the Transformer album.  Never heard of it but the cover looked OK.  Not disco at all:

 Hundreds of "Cool Points" 

to teenage Robert for owning this.

Although he now tells me 

he only borrowed it from 

Annamarie.

Robert had his own Hi-Fi, the lucky devil, in his bedroom - remembering that those were the days when very few of us did -  I think we only had a little yellow transistor in ours - so I was jealous as anything.

But first he put on "Vicious":



"For this I caught two buses", I thought, not impressed at all. It does grow on you ... only, you know, not so much.

But then he played "Satellite of Love":



I found it absolutely transfixing and wanted to hear it over and over again.  Something in it spoke to me, although, listening to it today I have no idea what.

And then, oh my, just when I was blissed out by "Satellite of Love", he put on the absolute masterpiece of the Transformer album.  Yes, none other than the truly great "Perfect Day".

Since we all know what "Perfect Day" sounds like when Lou Reed does it, let me find another version.

Oh, this one is just goosebumpy and perfect so let's go with this:



And then, when we were walking on air, on a Lou-induced Cloud 9, we drifted our way down to Tradewinds for a "Pretend Tourist and Faux Guest" session around their hotel pool.

It was such a perfect afternoon, and I'd like to thank Robert Oliver for thinking of me, and for wanting to introduce me to Lou Reed, and also a massive kudos to Lou Reed for writing songs that exactly spoke to a pair of angst-ridden Goth-hearted teenagers like the pair of us were back then.

Lou Reed, R.I.P. and thank you.