Words and Guitar, Vol. 1: We Need (a) New Noise (Floor Column)
The first entry in a weekly column by Terence Cawley.
Hello, loyal Noise Floor followers and Friends of Ben! My name is Terence Cawley, and I’ve written about music for The Boston Globe, Vanyaland, and Northeastern University’s music magazine, Tastemakers. That last publication is where I first met Noise Floor mastermind Ben Stas; I’m proud to say I’ve counted him as a good friend and occasional collaborator ever since. Those collaborations have typically been reviews of Boston-area concerts where I write the words and he takes the pictures- a combination which, in a charming show of humility, we often dubbed “the dream team.”
But of course, we won’t be reviewing or photographing any shows any time soon. So when Ben graciously invited me to write for Noise Floor, I jumped at the opportunity to reunite the dream team in a new, quarantine-friendly format. So: this is my new weekly column, Words and Guitar (named for the Sleater-Kinney song). Each post will begin with a rambly, navel-gazey intro of minimal value or interest, much like this one, before concluding with a top-5 list tied to a highly specific theme. For this debut entry, my theme is:
Top 5 Silliest Lou Reed Songs
I recently put in some time with the 21st-century solo output of iconic Velvet Underground leader Lou Reed. Sadly, this was inspired, like all too much of my listening these days, by a death: specifically, Hal Willner, the music industry lifer who, in addition to working as a sketch music producer at “Saturday Night Live” for decades and assembling eclectic, star-studded tribute albums and concerts, was a close friend of Reed’s and the producer of most of his late-period albums.
Willner is the kind of behind-the-scenes master who I love learning about. Like an ace session musician, he could be found in the liner notes of countless albums, yet while those in the know might have heralded his accomplishments, I’m willing to guess that I wasn’t the only die-hard music fan who never heard Willner’s name or realized his impact until he was gone, at which point seemingly every artist I admired could be heard bitterly mourning his passing. Revisiting Anthony DeCurtis’ excellent biography “Lou Reed: A Life,” I found the glimpses it gave into Willner and Reed’s oddball kinship incredibly touching.
But the key word I want to hone in on for this list is “oddball.” Because while Lou Reed is one of the most important and influential rock stars of all time, one who for many people epitomized a certain kind of leather jacket-clad, unflappable New York cool, he sure did put out a lot of weird records. Some of them, like the profoundly depressing song cycle Berlin and the harsh noise of Metal Machine Music, were boundary-pushing, avant-garde experiments that were eventually hailed as ahead-of-their-time masterpieces
Then there were the ones that were just plain goofy. Here are five of my favorites from the latter category.
- “The Original Wrapper,” from Mistrial (1986)
Better writers than I have already dissected the many, many baffling decisions which made Reed’s sole attempt at hip-hop such a historic misfire (this video not least among them), so all I’ll add here is a question: with the verse that attempts to rhyme “sanctimonious,” “pugnacious,” “lugubrious,” and “salutation,” did Reed invent white-guy rappity-rap?
- “Brandenburg Gate,” from Lulu (2011)
The silly songs of Lou Reed can be roughly sorted into two categories. There are the overtly goofy ones, like “The Original Wrapper,” where Reed’s clearly just trying to have some fun. This track, and pretty much the entirety of his famously unlistenable team-up with Metallica, falls into the second category: songs where Reed tries so hard to shock and offend that he merely sounds ridiculous. The opening lines (“I would cut my legs and tits off/When I think of Boris Karloff and Kinski/In the dark of the moon”) are self-parody at its most sublime, while James Hetfield’s insistent barking of the refrain “small town girl!” makes me wonder if he’s ever attempted “Don’t Stop Believin’” at karaoke night. And this is just the first song on the album!
- “Like a Possum,” from Ecstasy (2000)
Ecstasy is actually pretty well-regarded overall; Titus Andronicus leader Patrick Stickles recently wrote a thoughtful analysis of the album for Stereogum to mark its 20th anniversary. That doesn’t make the fact that the album’s centerpiece is a droning, 18-minute guitar riff over which Reed shouts about it being “possum day” and how he feels like a possum in every way any less ridiculous. Upping the absurdity factor is the juxtaposition of the possum stuff with Reed yelling about smoking crack and prostitutes, because, well, it wouldn’t be a Lou Reed song if he didn’t devote at least some time to chronicling the seedy underbelly of New York City.
I kind of love this song.
- “Hop Frog (ft. David Bowie),” from The Raven (2003)
Two of the greats, together on one track! Do they recapture the magic of Reed’s glam-rock classic Transformer, which Bowie co-produced? Or do they contribute a jaunty tune to Reed’s Edgar Allen Poe-themed album The Raven which, while sharing a title with a Poe short story, contains such decidedly un-spooky declarations as “Well, they call me a juicy hop-frog/You can see me in any wood bog”? You be the judge!
- “Egg Cream,” from Set the Twilight Reeling (1996)
The reason the silly songs of Lou Reed just make me love him even more is because they make him human. If you only listened to The Velvet Underground and Reed’s ‘70s solo albums, you’d think he was some mythical prince of darkness. And he was that, sometimes. Other times, he was just a nostalgic, sentimental old New York crank pining for an old-timey dessert which I’m not even sure exists anymore- apparently, it contains neither eggs nor cream? Weird!
Anyway, “Egg Cream” might not be the best Lou Reed song, but it definitely gets my vote for the Lou Reed-iest. One minute, he’s struggling to remember which locations in which cities serve egg creams (“ there must be something in L.A.”); then suddenly, he’s talking about “knife fights and kids pissing in the street.” What a goddamn legend.
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Well, I hope you all enjoyed that! Check out the Spotify playlist with all the songs I’ve talked about here below, let me know if I missed your favorite silly Lou Reed song, and I’ll see you next week!