Lou Reed: The Blue Mask / Legendary Hearts song by song review

Just want to get this in here because I don't think I've seen it mentioned: Songs For Drella is a great later period Lou collaboration with Cale honoring Andy Warhol.

 

Yes! So many exciting live recordings, some of them very crazy. Lou performed without a net. Fearless is the word!

 

Having a sneak preview of Legendary Hearts..."Make Up My Mind" is a beauty.

 

The Blue Mask - track 6

Average Guy

After the onslaught of The Blue Mask we have some levity. There has been touches of debatable humour in the song Women but Average Guy seems to go all out for the yuks. I always wondered were this song came from and how it sat musically in this album, lyrically you can make a case for it but it seemed out of place otherwise. Interestingly Robert Quine said that Reed decided to sing it in his "Transformer" voice and when I read that it fell into place. As an album that both looks back as well as forward and also features the same iconic sleeve photo as his first major hit album Average Guy feels like Reed being enjoyably self referential amid the turmoil. The fact that he sings in a persona from the years when he was most certainly not an "average guy" adds to the weird fun house mirror distortions this album has thrown at us.

Another amusing thing is that, at least to me, he is not singing first person as a working stiff (as he would in Don't Talk To Me About Work on LH) but as a character pretending to be a blue collar working guy but spectacularly failing to convince due to the campy mannerism of the vocal. It feels almost like a joke about the extreme self deception people will resort to to cover up their true identities, if they feel it does not fit in with the rest of society. If the guy from the back cover of Transformer came up to you and tried to convince you he was a blue collar schlub you would laugh out loud. Reed's vocals become more and more stressed out as the song goes to the bridges. It is the desperate bridges which make the song for me, counter balancing the comedy with the everyday fears which when you live them seem to take over your life......until something worse comes along. I get a strong sense of Charles Bukowski and the pathos and comedy he rung from everyday drudgery in his novels Post Office, Factotum and Ham on Rye. On one hand Bukowski was an "average" guy, working a series of menial jobs, drinking himself insensible (he definitely found himself Underneath the Bottle), prone to repugnant misogyny while living in poverty. On the other he was a brilliant sensitive poet, check out his poems Blue Bird and The Genius Of The Crowd, and a scabrous satirist of the tedium of suburban America and his place in it. One of his books was called "All the A@@holes in the World and Mine".

Quine plays some mysterious riffs that sound like a mutant cross between surf rock and Richie Valens with a bit of tremelo bar action on the chorus. I love his tone and the little fill at 2.35 after Lou shouts "Average" like a war cry and at 2.47 as he plays some delicate solos until the end. Saunders plays some popping bass which for once is maybe slightly inappropriate for a rhythm guitar groove which reminds me of Proud Mary. I wonder if this is intentional, making a joke at CCR's working man's band status?

 

Wow, a very elaborate analysis as per usual.

Never thought much of this song beyond that it's one of many Lou songs where he takes a simple idea and very successfully expands on it. I think he called them "list" songs in an interview with Bill Flanagan. The hilarious self deception comedy element also make it a relation of "A Gift" from Coney Island Baby.

The intro to this live rendition is also worth a chuckle...

 

A great example of how Lou can come up with the perfect melody for his lyrics. I just love the perfectly average guitar riff that follows Lou every time he declares himself an average guy.
I find that riff as funny as any of the lyrics, and Average Guy is one of the funniest lyrics I know.

 

This is another song that could have appeared on "Growing Up in Public".

 

There does seem to be a concerted effort to make the backing sound ... average.

I like how Lou's vocal grows more manic - as if he knows he's not being convincing so he needs to sell the "average" angle harder. And that manic portion culminates in NOT having a precisely average temperature (despite efforts, one assumes, to have one).

 

I think it fits on this particular record - Lou Reed the everyman. I think this is how he felt about himself when he wasn't playing a role, when sobriety kicked in.

Btw it's funny what one comes across when googling. Apparently the BPM for this is 112. Average?
BPM for Lou Reed - Average Guy on songbpm Live version is faster.

You mean like someone trying hard to convince others of their normality? Interesting, you could think of it like that - and when he gets more manic it's like someone who starts to protest too much for it to be plausible. That would tie in with the weird domesticity of the My House, the first track. Thanks for another thought provoking and engaged post.

 

I was interested in many perspectives above that I'm overstating the lack of commercial appeal, comparatively, of Lou among other intellectual rock giants. That could be. But here's where I'm coming from, especially with the Arista years: I can imagine playing pretty much any Neil album up to TRANS or any Dylan album for the most part to anyone who was at least a mild fan of their most iconic and best selling work and imagine them at least NOT going "what the bloody hell is this crazy ****?" whereas when I separate my own admiration of Lou from it, I do imagine most normal fans of say Walk on the Wild Side or Satellite of Love having that reaction to most of the Arista stuff. But also, lacking sales figures I'm kind of guessing. But if Lou was selling as little as I imagine I'm amazed at how far prestige got him career wise.

 

What's especially funny about GROWING UP IN PUBLIC compared to BELLS and STREET HASSLE is it kinda sounds like someone said or thought, Lou, make this sound more, I don't know, like some other not-dumb current pop songwriter, maybe Billy Joel or something? And Lou going, ok, here you go! (whether in sincere attempt to kind of hide how strange his songs were in a more pop sound, or just perversely.)

 

Always sounded to me that Lou spent so much time on the lyrics on "Growing Up on Public" that he just left the music to Michael Fonfara.

 

I had heard somewhere somewhen that this was inspired by a critic calling his previous couple of records "average".
I can't prove this as somewhen was a long time ago, and my recollection is shaky at best.

Combine that with his recent domestication and this song was just asking to be written.

 

"Slow Train Coming", and even more so, "Saved" = "crazy ****" to the mild fan
"Everybody's Rockin'" or "Trans" = "crazy ****" to the mild fan

And that's note even breaching "Self Portrait" ("What is this ****?") or "Arc"

 

Like your description of Quine on guitar here, those "delicate solos" at the end of the song remind me of Chuck Berry bending the strings. There's a lot that he's doing on the guitar but it's all so understated, which matches the deadpan delivery of Reed's voice. Listening to the song again for the lyrical gags, I think I caught Lou singing that his temperature is "ninety-eight point two" (never heard that line before) and that's just slightly... below... average. Another gag I guess.

 

Well, let's not forget most of the Arista stuff is very good. It's valid music. And those were different times, where you didn't have to sell a gazillion of records to be on a major label.
The Bells sold miserably (according to Lou, 2 copies, and he bought both ) . But The Blue Mask, which supposedly saved Lou's carreer, also did terribly in the States.

 

That always reminded me of Bryan Ferry, discovering both during the early 80's I was surprised how many 70's albums there actually were. Some of them low-key and - commercially - not really successful. Partially recycling old songs. All of them more or less worthwhile. "Another Time Another Place" at least had the title track. As last song.

And then there are the cool sunglasses sleeves.

 

I have to say that considering how much Lou grumbled about his low sales and lack of mainstream success both solo and with the VU I think he did pretty well. I mean to keep making records for major labels for so long is an achievement in itself. Especially considering how weird a lot of it was. Lets face it he was also good at creating controversy, he had some famous fans and gave good interview.

 

i think lou was a natural marketing genius like iggy pop ... still don't understand why vu where so "underground" in the sixties... wasn't warhol an icon ?

 

True but I think the fine art world is still pretty limited as far as mass marketing to the common man aka the average pop fan. I mean everyone knows who Warhol is but how many people own his paintings? Saying that he has probably sold a lot of postcards! I don't know if radio censorship was enforced when the first album was released in America? I know The Byrds had radio problems with the supposed drug references in Eight Miles High in 1966.

Also I think the Warhol circus and the VU had what was perceived as a bad attitude, they took the piss out of hippies and didn't make any effort to be part of any scenes apart from the very small Factory scene. I always thought the same about Love with Forever Changes not being a huge hit, but then they didn't really tour as far as I know so a lot of breaking an album is really working it on the road and making friends with all the executives

 

@strummer101
Sorry not sure if it was you talking about doing a song by song for the Bells but if it was you should! Maybe do an "Arista" albums thread? All the talk about The Bells made me dig it out again and I have to say it is almost as I remember it, 70% genius and 30% madness. I used to think Disco Mystic was the worst thing I had ever heard but now I love it! Funny and funky. I still hate Stupid Man and With You, the vocals are just to disturbing like someone having a nervous breakdown on record. Looking for Love also has terrible vocals but I like the groove, reminds me of some Velvet's rockers. I Want To Boogie With You is brilliant, doowop Lou, I remember loving this first time round. The last three tracks are all brilliant, definitive hardcore Lou. City Lights is cool but is that Don Cherry playing the excruciating off key trumpet?

Oddly this album makes me think of Bowie albums like Heroes or Low.

 

I agree, an Arista yeard thread would be cool.
Yes, that would be Don Cherry...

Three further tracks Lou co-wrote with Nils Lofgren (A Fool Like Me, I Found Her) appears on his 1979 album Nils, along with a track Lou wrote with Dick Wagner (I'll Cry Tomorrow).
Lou doesn't sing or play on the (fairly weak) album though.

Nils (album) - Wikipedia

 

Have no idea why Lou decided "City Lights" should be in completely the wrong key for his voice, Barry White might have been able to do it justice but Lou certainly couldn't.

 

Nope. Wasn't me. I don't have the time or persistence to start that type of thread. I would participate, though!

 

I would participate in any further Lou Reed discussions. The Bells and Growing Up in Public are two in the catalogue that I am yet to hear, although I know where they fit in, so would be hearing them fresh. Can someone remind me of the Arista lps - is it just Street Hassle and these two?