I would rather eat a bowl full of kale than listen to "Turn To Me" 22,403 times. I would rather watch that entire David Bowie/Louis Vuitton commercial than listen to "Turn To Me" 22,404 times. I would rather ghostwrite Suddenly Susan Fan Fiction than listen to "Turn To Me" 22,405 times. I would rather stand up in a crowded room, maybe an airport, and shout "why would you ever listen to 'Satellite of Love' when you can listen to 'Coney Island Baby'?" than listen to "Turn To Me" 22,406 times. I would rather sit down to a three course meal with someone who'd just seen Taxi Driver for the first time at 42 than listen to "Turn To Me" 22,407 times. I would rather write a join a barbershop quartet than listen to "Turn To Me" 22,408 times. I would rather become tour manager to a very successful barber shop quartet than listen to "Turn To Me" 22,409 times. I would rather take a staff position reviewing new barbershop quartet albums for America's leading barbershop quartet magazine Greater Than Three than listen to "Turn To Me" 22,410 times.
It's not actually a bad song. Fernando Saunders's bass, which doesn't even come in until 1:30, is really great. And the tone on Lou's guitar is fantastic. Again, he'd perfect a lot of this stuff on New York, but man, just the right amount of distortion, and then the choir "ooohs" in on the line "if your father is freebasing and your mother turning tricks" is pretty fucking dynamite, too.
I don't know if you saw that New Statesman column "Lou Reed: Why no one wanted to write his obituary", but it's pretty much garbage from the premise down and not really worth addressing, but we're here and lets do it anyway, okay? Let's not pretend we're good people, above such pettiness, alright?
Okay, so you've got this paragraph:
I often wondered if his tightly set mouth, was – like Scott Walker under that baseball cap – the demeanour of someone who’d done something significant 40 years ago and spent the rest of their life imprisoned by it, wearing the legend heavily like a tortoise shell, dragging it around until it became everything he stood for. For people like that, life gets harder the older you get, as your moment of creativity recedes into the distance and your audience gets younger, more adulatory and more banal.And, I mean, I hate to, you know, be a fucking superfan, but have you even listened to Lou Reed? Are you aware that he made something like 30 solo albums after leaving the Velvet Underground and that he very rarely repeated himself creatively? I mean, listen to The Bells and then listen to Street Hassle. Listen to Mistrial and then listen to Set the Twilight Reeling. Geez. Does this sound someone weighed down by having "done something significant 40 years ago"?
"Turn To Me" is no "Egg Cream". "Turn To Me" is no "Coney Island Baby". "Turn To Me" is no "Leave Me Alone". "Turn To Me" is no "Down at the Arcade". "Turn To Me" is no "Mama's Got a Lover". "Turn To Me" is no "Caroline Says". "Turn To Me" is no "Disco Mystic". "Turn To Me" is no "Hookywooky". "Turn To Me" is no "Hookywooky". "Turn To Me" is no "Hookywooky".
1 comment:
And yet this is one of those Lou Reed songs that I find myself accidentally singing. Often. Actually, this, New Sensations, Fly Into The Sun and High In The City have been on heavy rotation in my internal radio station since the 80s.
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