What Goes On -The Songs Of Lou Reed

The latest in Ace Records Songwriters series takes the listener from a version of Why Dont You Smile Now from Lou Reeds pre-Velvet Underground days through selections from the bands albums to songs from 1972s solo Transformer. Heres Kris Needs author of a 7,000-word essay in the accompanying 24-page booklet with some background on the collections closing song: Lou quit the Velvet Underground after the final show of the bands nine-week residency at Maxs Kansas City in August 1970, before their Loaded album was released, citing his snake-like manager and disgust over the editing and mix as he repaired to his parents house in Freeport. Exhausted by touring, disillusioned at the bands lack of success, withdrawing from drugs and intending to devote himself to writing, he took a low-paid typing post at his fathers accountancy firm and started contributing to small press publications. Im a poet, he declared after a successful reading at St Marks Church Poetry Project, mixing song lyrics and new poems in front of an enthusiastic crowd including Allen Ginsberg and various Warhol associates. In 2018, the Lou Reed Archive published these poems in a book called Do Angels Need Haircuts?. Uncannily prescient for modern times, We Are The People was set to music by Iggy Pop on his 2019 late-life masterpiece Free, his rich, mahogany tones reciting lines including We are the people without land. We are the people without tradition. We are the people who have known only lies and desperation. We are the people without a country, a voice or a mirror. The track is one of three beat-less spoken word tone poems that close this startlingly seductive set created with US trumpeter-composer Leron Thomas and guitarist-artist Sarah Lipstate (aka Noveller), its impact continued on Do Not Go Gentle In To The Good and The Dawn. Speaking in a Sirius XM interview, Iggy remembered receiving Do Angels Need Haircuts? in the mail: I opened up the book and it was the first poem on the first page. I thought about what he was saying, and I thought it was today in Trumps America. Lou was a hero to me. The guy was someone I looked up to and admired because of his skill as a songwriter and what he was able to put across as a lyricist two separate things. Its absolutely relevant today. We are the people without land. The poem is a statement. Lou Reeds statement.