(TV) 'growing up in public', essential Lou indeed!

[wal00@hampshire.edu]

 lyrically, GUIP is not bad, tho i wouldn't say exceptionally good either. Lou 
always has good themes, but i am never overly impressed by his reputedly 
gorgeous, simple use of language. the passage cited does surprise me tho. 
however, i'm just examining the album musically, and to me it appears a 
laughable bumble thru the studio. 'how do you speak to an angel'?! what a 
bewildering segue that makes it in there! and the Iron Maiden-tinged 'standing 
on ceremony'? these songs just seem hilariously incongruous with Lou's 
songwriting style, and the album just seems to be catching him off guard (if 
the many others, previous and subsequent, didn't). he just seems to be a fish 
out of water, trying to get his money's worth out of a studio full of young, 
progressive session aces. i get a sense that he's lost the ability to look at 
his own work objectively. as for being an album with "character and style", i 
don't think Lou wears either fittingly in this case.
 what's amazing to me is how often the music fails to provide adequate 
accompaniment for Lou's lyrics. to take an example from a different album, 'my 
house' from _blue mask_ makes a decent homage to Delmore Schwartz as a poem, 
but once put to Lou's music, it just winds up a clunker that dates itself 
quickly. aside from some great stuff from _transformer_ and _coney island 
baby_, his music is either mediocre or bad, IMO. "good Lou" only seems good 
within the context of Lou, if that makes sense. 
 i never said i wasn't entertained by GUIP, tho. for this, it is _fucking_ 
essential.
 _songs for drella_ is a step above for Lou, for sure. but Cale certainly 
deigns to be on that album. 

 to quote Lou himself, after the Velvets, "things go from bad to weird."
willie



I must take exception, Willie - 'Growing Up In Public' is one of my
favorite LR albums. Opening lyric: "A son who is cursed with a harridan
mother and a weak simpering father at best is forced to play out the
timeless classical motifs of filial love and incest." Four bars, one
sentence. From here he carries a strong, personal literary theme to the
end of how families imprint your mentality as we join teenage Cabaret Lou
entering adulthood. On 'My Old Man' the father beats his mother - had the
weak simpering father had enough or is it a different character? On
'Standing On Ceremony' he pulls out the White Light type rhythm for the
coda - a funny song I guess in that it resembles the SNL 'loud utensils'
sketch. 'Keep Away' places you in the middle of bitter relationship
turmoil ("Here's some books and a puzzle by Escher. Here's Shakespeare's
'Measure For Measure'") and lest we forget 'The Power Of Positive
Drinking'. Enmeshed in the NY singles scene circa 1980, finally the
narrator settles down into the comfort of his own family as gorgeously
rendered in the lyrics of 'Think It Over' (which should have been played
in a different key, but oh well). Unlike virtually every album after the
Blue Mask, every song on GUIP doesn't sound the same. Unless you just
completely hate pianos and keyboards on a rock record I can't see what
there is not to like about it, if you're a Lou Reed fan that is. These are
great songs played with character and style but still with straight-ahead,
live rock and roll energy. The track sequence utilizes dramatic tempo
changes to the fullest. You can find this album cheap in many used record
bins and it's just been reissued on CD. Essential Lou.

GL
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