Best Song on Lou Reed's Coney Island Baby

From the Coney Island Baby... extras cd?

 

Love this album, but the title track is one of the best things Lou ever did. Another song from the outside looking in, about longing to be part of the crowd (wanting to play football for the coach), missing the crowd that probably hated you back then (talking behind your back, saying you'll never be a human being), and then there's this:
"You gotta stand up straight unless you're gonna fall
Then you're gone to die
And the straightest dude
I ever knew was standing right for me all the time
So I had to play football for the coach
And I wanted to play football for the coach"
Again and again, throughout his career, Lou confronts his sexuality and the yearning to be one of the guys while also yearning to sleep with the guys. Sometimes with the very guys who would want to beat him up. The song aches with yearning and desire and feelings of otherness, but he finds redemption, as he often does, in love. That this song is dedicated to Rachel and the kids at PS 192 is wrenching and so dead on romantic it makes you wanna cry. A perfect song.

 

That's a good one.

 

Every song is a 10

 

yes indeed. i think its time to break that on out of the archives for a listen

 

What about Sally Can't Dance thread ?

 

1. Coney Island Baby
2. Charley's Girl
3. A Gift

However all the songs are great apart from "Nobody's Business".

 

Oooh yeah, I'm in! Love that album .

 

Kicks......but the title song a close second. Might be my favorite album by him.

 

Maybe this thread starter could do it.
Doing alright with this thread.

 

Love this album! Voted for "Crazy Feeling", "A Gift" and - obviously - the title track. Because there's no way you can not pick that. I mean:

"I'd like to send this one out to Lou and Rachel
And all the kids at P.S. one-ninety-two (Coney Island baby)
Man, I'd swear, I'd give the whole thing up for you."

That's just beautiful, isn't it?

 

He's in love but there's an unconventional twist to it being that he's in love with Rachel, and his lifestyle at the time was wild. Those lines hits me even harder, knowing that.

 

I can't decide on top three.

Coney Island Baby
She's My Best Friend
Charlie's Girl

The only thing I really know, aside from the title track is the best track, is that I kind of dislike the Kicks lyric.

I like it and I like the fact the 3rd and 4th lines do not left-align with the first two lines. Lines 3 and 4 do not even line up with each other! Classic.

I didn't know that. Have you heard them?

 

1. Sounds like Lou on guitar. Anybody know for sure?
2. Is this on an official release?

 

The title track

 

The 30th Edition cd has these tracks from the January 1975 demo sessions, with Doug Yule on guitar and bass:

Downtown Dirt (later recut for Street Hassle)
Crazy Feeling
She's My Best Friend (killer version)
Coney Island Baby

I Wanna Be Black was also recorded, but hasn't been released (it was of course also recut for Street Hassle).

Live concerts in spring '75 featured Downtown Dirt, Coney Island Baby, I Wanna Be Black, Kicks and the unreleased You Can Dance.
So basically Lou had at least half the album written that early.

 

Yes that Take No Prisoners version of Coney Island Baby is one of my all time favourite tracks. The extended glory of love play out is astonishingly powerful. And the live 1978 band is fantastic. So strong. So beautiful.

 

Yes, of course! They always sounded too good to me to think of them as demos. I have those first four tracks on that CD of CIB. Great tracks. I can't understand how a record company could have rejected an album based those.

I'd really like to hear that version of I Wanna Be Black, too!

 

He's not on the actual album but the extras.

 

She's my best friend.

 

Whats the single-mix of Charlie's Girl like?

 

I think it has more backing vocals and maybe more guitar - from memory.

 

There used to be a better version of the "Charley's Girl" single on YouTube but here's the only one I can find right now.

 

Coney Island
but Charleys Girl is pretty close

 

+1