A Short Tribute to Lou Reed

Was a sad morning yesterday when we heard the news that Lou Reed had died. Next thing I knew my husband was playing the  Transformer CD , and I knew the Weintraub house was in mourning. Seems like just a few weeks ago I had spotted Reed in a cameo in a Netflix movie, Prozac Nation A college kid was enamored with him, and the time period was the 1990s.

Clearly, he was a phenomenally influential musician who touched generations.

I recall the first Velvet Underground album I owned, The Velvet Underground & Nico, and I’ve owned several of them. This was in 1967-68. It was valuable because the banana peeled, but the album lost its value if one peeled off the banana. Warhol had designed it, so you knew it was cool. Friends being what they were back then had peeled it off, so I had to buy another, and the next version was not that of a peeling banana. Kind of like the experience with the Beatles album Yesterday and Today that had dead dolls strewn with meat under the cover. Those kind of collectibles don’t come along every day.

You didn’t have to be a junkie to appreciate Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. I could listen to Heroin over and over and over. He had a rawness, gritty character and vision many of us admired and related to. He spoke to all misguided souls and misfits as well as those in search of reality.

My husband came of age in a different era, 11 years after me, and he came to know Lou Reed as well. To him, the father of punk, I guess. So, we each have a different relationship but it’s based on the same pull.

Lou Reed was 71. Survived by Laurie Anderson. May his legend live on and continue to shape lives.