LOU REED: A Tribute To .

1959. He looked  so fine. Jet black hair, compliments his " Darth Vader" stare, basketball , music and naturally girls so fair. Living in Freeport he had no plans, took life as it came.
  1967. Thought he was in heaven, but no. Not Lou, he went deep, deep down. Below the
" Velvet Underground."
  Sixties generation sang...about peace, love and mind expanding properties of LSD. Reed N' the 'underground,' represented the dark side of the hippy dream.
  It's a wonder why he lasted so long, surely odds on for ' Rock N' Roll martyrdom. Lou Reed, in 1973 touring UK. Hey! Even caught him kissing ' Ziggy,' while a 'Rolling Stone' looked on.
  Waiting for a dealer to come, with a very different kind of drug culture-a bleak world of needles  and spoons and filthy basement rooms. Shivering on a street corner in uptown New York.
" I'm Waiting For The Man," so he may give " Heroin."
   A very long way from  " Wood stock "  and  " Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Only Reed would have you singing along to the line like: " Feel sick and dirty n' more dead than  alive."
   Many hits he had,  when solo he did " Transformer " and it took Lou a  " Walk On The Wild Side," from space he was on his  " Satellite Of Love, " all the while searching, waiting for his  " Perfect Day."
    Most only knew of Lou, when they heard his  " Perfect Day."
1972, off he went to sing " Berlin," he got home sick, sang  " New York,"  where he found a girl. " "Sally Can't Dance " she was a  "Rock n' Roll Animal."
    His intimidating presence, with a thousand yard stare, hard to tell if he wanted to have sex, rip my throat out or share half a gram of pure heroin in a filthy basement room with an aura of darkness about him. With Lou, it was reasonable to assume that it was all 3.
   Reed's ambivalence to his sexuality had Bowie open up his bisexuality. Glam Rock was a bunch o' beer drinking  brickies slapping on a bit of mascara for a few years.
Sweet, Mud, The Glitter Band even Bryan Ferry, know which side they really dressed. With Lou , you never knew for certain .
   Marrying Laurie, Lou grew into a respectable old man of rock aristrocracy, always an aura of darkness about him .
    Lou was the real thing, only two were his equal , writing on the same sheet. Bowie n' Dyllan.  Reed, lyrically sophisticated n' musically simple. 3 chords, catchy riff, give it some welly, and your done, ' cause he's still the best.
   Warhol, managed the " Underground."  1st album went down. 30,000 copies sold.  Proving you didn't need to be virtuoso to make music.
Sound of  " Velvet Underground's "  " Sweet Jane," punk was being invented. Reed was an artist when it was possible for rock musicians to become artists.
   Lou was the ' Darth Vader' of rock n' Roll. His baleful glare demanded you take him serious. Unlike Bowie, Jagger,or Keith Richards- Lou made no attempt to charm you.
   In his seventies, Reed looked healthy even after his liver transplant. In one of his last pic's Lou was with Ronnie Wood. You would not have bet your cash on Reed falling  off the perch first. The transplant hits at a man who may of had plenty of regrets about a lifetime of subtance abuse.
 At 71 Lou was desperate for a few more years. Poor bastard never got them. His work has and always will stand the test of time. Golden years, second half of the 20th Century, where skinny boys from Liverpool to London to New York plugged in their guitars in sweat stained smoke filled basement rooms and then changed the world. Lou Reed, who was truly  one of a dying breed from a lost age.
   The  world has lost a fine songwriter, poet.
Lou Reed gone from this world. Don't for God's sake say RIP,  ' Cause we all know he's a walking, and we all know which side he's walking on.
  His music will out live time itself. We are all timebound, but today, with the loss of liberating Lou, life is a pigsty.
 Lou, you'll  always walk on the wild side, even on a perfect day.

                                           LOU REED