Who Am I?

We all have two faces, indeed. But few polarise these two sides like Lou Reed: rugged like a rock immune to erosion or lovable until fainting. Sitting uncomfortably, during a brief interview with Spanish public television — a few hours before his 2003 Bilbao concert — he is giving his most petrified expression to the camera. Hiding behind a pair of sophisticated shades he designed — the ones that open up when the occasion arises — he is sorting out with an uncertain willingness bordering on reluctance the tired topics addressed by a grey interviewer. Then a last topic shows up, the obligatory Andy Warhol question: “It would take hours...” he deadpans. Then he shows some mercy and adds: “Andy Warhol’s favourite song was “All Tomorrow’s Parties”, he had asked me to write that song so I did. Every time I play that song I think of Andy, and I’m going to play it tonight.’’. Thank you very much and goodbye. He stands up before anybody can stop him and heads for the next one.

Finally it’s my turn, and I willingly take the conversation to The Raven against the spectacularly remastered anthology New York City Man which he is actually promoting. I know this Edgar Allan Poe-inspired play turned digital audio extravaganza has every chance of being ignored for fear of intellectual indigestion, but I still think it’s one of the most ambitious and productive recordings of his career, a testimonial declaration of sorts that — although invoking a literary icon and his morbid world — contains all the Lou Reeds from the past and a few extra ones. Obviously, the fact that it’s based on a theatre play and uses spoken word throughout — the very dense two CD complete version, less so the single CD with mostly songs — will render it inaccessible for today’s short attention spans. Those more used to channel-surfing or doom-scrolling the social media feed will not get too far here, but this is no excuse for the willing listener ready for long term, deep scrutiny. Like any overreaching work of art, The Raven might seem to be suffering at times from riveting musical megalomania or invisible theatrical gesturing, but these inherent flaws do not restrain the absorbing metaphysical nature of this most cathartic experience gained by travelling through it from beginning to end. No, The Raven is free from the anticipated weight of pretentious ennui. This sprawling beast heightens Lou Reed’s writing abilities and watches him confront and analyse existence and its scary ramifications with bold realism. In its hundred plus minutes, the album draws a fat line connecting the obsessions of that dipsomaniac genius who saw ugly birds and was obsessed with necrophilia with those of the New York poet and musician.

Consequently, there’s a stirring break up between his more sensitive side, the perfect in its simplicity and bitter sweetness “Vanishing Act”, and his more outrageous side, the fiery “Fire Music”, painfully unlistenable. But these are only the extremes of a wide expressive palette that runs through the classic Transformer and Berlin era — not only on new “Perfect Day” and “The Bed” performances, but also in their echoes through “Broadway Song”, “Science Of The Mind” or the wonderful, transcendent epilogue that is “Guardian Angel” – through that dark but intensely creative phase Reed lived at the end of the Seventies – “A Thousand Departed Souls”, “Burning Embers” or “Guilty” arise from that same jazz-rock- punk magma that informed Street Hassle and The Bells – and through the hardworking maturity of his more recent albums, finally capturing an artist already in his sixties but also in full command of his art. A musician still able to top his best past achievements, as proven by the awesome, autobiographical by inference “Who Am I?”. There’s so much personal, physical and cerebral investment on The Raven that Reed easily outshines an impressive “cast of characters’’, from well known actors – the fitting main characters Willem Dafoe and Steve Buscemi, the raspy voiced ladies Elizabeth Ashley and Amanda Plummer – to legendary musicians Ornette Coleman and David Bowie. All of them overrun by Poe and Reed, coupled by Robert Wilson, who instigated the play Poe-try that engendered the album. The same goes for the Five Blind Boys Of Alabama, helping him out – probably astonished, them I mean – on the abysmal gospel immersion “I Want To Know”, a therapeutically existentialist trance, or his dear Laurie Anderson, guesting on the tender ballad “Call On Me”.

We all have two faces, including Lou Reed, even if he boasted years ago of having many more. The cold interview mask, trying in vain to disguise a fiery intelligence and the disdain for other people’s curiosity, will finally fall and the true Lou Reed will show up. Gentle and full of affection when before he was dry and displeasing.

Ignacio: I last talked to you in 1998, after that free concert in front of Barcelona’s Cathedral.

Lou: Yes, I remember that show.

Ignacio: It was part of your acoustic tour.

Lou: Acoustic-electric.

Ignacio: The Mayor of the city was there too...

Lou: I know. Very, very beautiful show. The church in the back, the lights. Very beautiful. Tonight will be gorgeous too.

Ignacio: Let’s talk about The Raven. After first listening to the album I was struck by the fact that, despite the spectacular cast of characters, there’s more Lou Reed than ever in this album. Were you conscious of maybe doing a summation of all the sounds and styles you have been perfecting through the years?

Lou: You know, at a certain point one of the musicians mentioned it to me. He said, “you know, we are doing the whole thing, every single thing is in here now”. So I wasn’t aware of it at the beginning, but at a certain point, when the musician said, “this is wonderful, this is everything we’ve worked on... plus,” So that was very exciting.

Ignacio: Why Edgar Allan Poe?

Lou: The director Robert Wilson had asked me to write a play about him. We performed it in Germany, at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. Afterwards I had the opportunity to record the play, and I though it would be better to rewrite everything for the CD, to make it a better experience for the listener, to not see but imagine. The CD is very different from the play, very much, it has more music, more songs, more of everything, and a lot of rewriting, a lot of sound effects, things for the imagination.

Ignacio: As a writer, what attracted you to him?

Lou: My interest in Poe has to do with the psychology of the mind and the passion. His use of language is extraordinary. His words have an incredible rhythm, very musical. He injects in the stories he wrote a lot of humour, it’s very psychological.

Ignacio: How do you rewrite a master like Poe, were you afraid of... ?

Lou: With passion, it’s the only way I think, at least for me. Mindless passion. If you think about it too much you wouldn’t start, you’d say, ‘oh my God, it’s impossible!’.

Ignacio: It’s like retouching a masterpiece in a way. How did you choose the actors?

Lou: Hal Willner, my co-producer, and I had a list of the New York actors. We had a dream list that we hoped to get and we were very lucky, all of them agreed. So we had Willem Dafoe, Steve Buscemi, and Elizabeth Ashley, who’s on Broadway right now, Kathy Valk, Amanda Plummer and Fisher Stevens.

Ignacio: Did you direct them during the recording, like a movie director does?

Lou: Oh sure, yeah. It was always me, because I would say, “Willner why don’t you tell them?”. But he said, “No, no, you have got to direct, you are the director. Today you are the director”.

Ignacio: There’s this idea through the album that we do what we shouldn’t do, that’s in Poe but it’s also in your songs.

Lou: That’s in an essay by Poe called The Imp of the Perverse in which he says, this is not verbatim, ‘Why is it we are always attracted to that which we know is bad for us.’ Now, a contemporary corollary of that would be twelve step programs, AA, NA, Weight Watchers, non-smoking programs, any of that is right up that alley. But then there are people personally like, ‘Why do you smoke, why are you overweight, why do you fight with your wife, why do people commit crimes, why-why-why.’ So Poe had a very big universe to write about and not particularly strange: I’ve never met a person who doesn’t understand that statement.

Ignacio: In the album the old Poe talks to the young Poe. If you were able to meet the young Lou Reed what would you say to him?

Lou: Yeah... but I can’t. But in a CD I made it so you can, and that’s the way it works out. And I have the old Poe say, ‘If I could only talk to the young Poe, if I could see him, if I could tell him, if I could...’ But it never does, but it never happens. What would I do? What does he do? Nothing. What can you do? It never happens that way. If it does happen for somebody, I wish they would tell me how they did that. That would be wonderful.

Ignacio: What are the qualities that you find in Hal Willner? You’ve been producing the best sound- ing albums of your career with him.

Lou: I love Hal Willner, I love Hal. His musical knowledge, his experience, his taste, his aesthetic, his abilities. He brings a lot to the table. It’s a great person to play with.

Ignacio: I was really excited about Ornette Coleman playing on the album. I know you’ve been a fan of his for years.

Lou: Forever! And I played with Don Cherry a number of times. On the New York City Man album, the amazing compilation that I sequenced and put together for BMG that’s coming out... I got to play with Ornette, you know, from The Raven, and then there I was remastering “The Bells” with Don on it, so there was a continuity. Because “The Bells” was in the Seventies, and that’s with Don, and now here in 2003 I got The Raven with Ornette. Big circle. The New York City Man is an amazing compilation which I took the opportunity to take tracks people may not have heard of, put them in a non-chronological order so that, I think, you can experience it like an opera. It’s like a new record. It’s very, very exciting.

Ignacio: So there’s a story going through the way you selected the songs.

Lou: An emotional story, I would think.

Ignacio: What’s next?

Lou: Who knows? My photography is going to be published in a book, and the text to The Raven will be published too as a book.

Linger On: The Velvet Underground by Ignacio Julià is reviewed in The Wire 471. Wire subscribers can read the review online via the digital library.