Made it to Seventy

Born 2 March 1942.

Surprisingly Lou Reed's still alive.

From The Velvet Underground & Nico

 

From Berlin

 

As a contrast to the mood of those two songs, I have to post Perfect Day.  It's an urban love song - the lovers spend the weekend together going to the park, the zoo, the movies.   Then comes the lines:-

You made me forget myself
I thought I was someone else,
Someone good.

which is one of the effects of happy romantic love - that you feel wonderfully virtuous, ready for heaven in fact.

Lou Reed's singing voice is flat and untuneful so I thought I'd see if someone else had covered it.  It's a very popular song, but I couldn't find one pleasing version of it.

There's Susan Boyle - they have souped up the strings and given it full orchestral treatment with a choir in the chorus.  I can't have that.

 

Mind you, Lou's badly used face behind Boyle's smiling nice lady who does the flowers in church is something worth looking at.

Coldplay (look for it yourself) - that's with guitars.  It needs a piano accompaniment.

Bono - not so much singing as half speaking.  Adds nothing to it.  Why all those different voices, jumping up and down the register?  Far too staccato as well.

Kirsty MaColl - I thought this was a real find since I really like her voice but I don't think it's right.  She's duetting with Evan Dando and it's a little expressionless and bland.

 

I googled "Perfect Day Best Version" and found some unknown on YouTube had used "Best Version" as bait to his own terrible rendering. 

There's the BBC Children in Need one where twenty or so artists do a line each.  It's excruciating - some poor belter like Tom Jones is cut off before he's got even into half a stride. 

I couldn't find any version that I liked.  Why doesn't k d lang do it?  She can put across a song and she doesn't overdo the orchestration.  Here, for instance, she does a marvellous version of Joni Mitchell's A Case of You - she gets the emotion but doesn't rant, every word is clear and she sounds so relaxed and easy. 

 

So nothing else but to hear the man himself do it. 

 

Comments

[Peter Wynne-Jones]

Went to the Lou Reed Concert in Wellington in 1974. Turned up a bit late and found that it had been cancelled due to Lou being considerably "under the weather". So, I didn't miss out after all. His version of Perfect Day is perfect IMHO. Transformer is still one of my favourite albums.Side One, Track Three!

You are right, it is surprising that he made it to 70.

[Norman Lamont]

It is a devastating line isn't it:

You made me forget myself
I thought I was someone else,
Someone good.

I never felt the ' you're going to reap ' bit really fitted lyrically, although the arrangement is lovely.
But as a piece of writing the rest of the song is admirable.

[Rosie]

I missed that gig of Lou Reed's as well - and considering how rare it was to see such a musician in NZ, it was a blow. I spent the refunded ticket price on an LP - possibly Berlin.

I agree that the "reap" bit doesn't really fit. Otherwise I think it's one of the best love songs from the 70s.

[Rosie]

That's along with A Case of You, though it's love in a different mood - as it's going sad and wrong. It's astonishing that a decadent depressive like Lou Reed could write a love song that describes happiness without being schmaltzy or over-blown.

[Allan]

Thanks for the range of cover versions here. As someone who shares a birthday with Lou Reed [and he spells his middle name the same way as my own forename---spooky]I have to plump for the original 'Transformer' version. A brilliant album that conjures up memories of early working life in Leslie Place in Edinburgh in the 1970s.