tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/lou-reed-7658/articlesLou Reed – The Conversation2018-06-22T11:34:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/955672018-06-22T11:34:05Z2018-06-22T11:34:05ZWhite Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground’s monochrome obituary for the love generation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224284/original/file-20180621-137738-xwplh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C281%2C1291%2C503&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thatspep/6813450964/in/photolist-bo5HAu-gfF4Qu-gfEPxb-7rdXf8-8qn2TY-gfEGjJ-bZKsH9-9wqCT3-6oMDpw-8qiTtR-nSbn1E-kHpHD-7yqfCR-dMg6mC-6s4wN-iKuao-b9qU8r-8tj34G-8tj33y-nbK9aA-8qk6np-8qoXuj-24Y42u8-RBfX6-8sp7aE-8qiTvx-ctc5y3-8sp71w-8qk5WV-8LvSLv-8qoXBC-8qiSgT-8qoXGW-kNMRrc-8qkMpn-8qoY95-fyB6ej-8qn3bW-9Nn2Gk-ocL4g-8qn28q-7heJFj-8qn2SU-8qiSmz-8qk5Mt-6cukvr-8qk6m6-8qoXKd-8qiSnD-8qoX9j">thatspep</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Veteran CNN reporter David Axelrod recently described 1968 as a time of “<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/23/opinions/memories-of-1968-chaos-in-black-and-white-axelrod/index.html">chaos in black and white</a>”. After the optimistic psychedelia of the previous year, events took a harsh turn as assassinations, riots and war unfolded on TV screens across the globe. Fifty years on, two music LPs from 1968 especially sum up Axelrod’s stark monochrome vision: The Beatles White Album, and White Light/White Heat, the second album from The Velvet Underground, the New York cult rock group previously managed by pop artist Andy Warhol. But it was White Light/White Heat that best anticipated the end of the hippy dream.</p>
<p>In reality, Warhol’s “management” of the group meant using them for his <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/andy-warhol-exploding-plastic-inevitable">Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI)</a> – a series of multimedia events across America. Featuring film screenings, fetish dancing and light shows, EPI was one of the first “happenings” – and Warhol placed the Velvet Underground at the centre of each event. He famously persuaded them to adopt <a href="https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/music/nico-the-return-of-the-rocknroll-star-26482989.html">German actress and model Nico</a> as a singer, and funded their first LP, The Velvet Underground and Nico, released the previous year.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224295/original/file-20180621-137714-3vogau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224295/original/file-20180621-137714-3vogau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224295/original/file-20180621-137714-3vogau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224295/original/file-20180621-137714-3vogau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224295/original/file-20180621-137714-3vogau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224295/original/file-20180621-137714-3vogau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224295/original/file-20180621-137714-3vogau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Pop art icon, part-time band manager.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andy_Warhol_by_Jack_Mitchell.jpg">Jack Mitchell</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>White Light/White Heat was a break from both the Warhol circus and the lyrical beauty of their debut record. While their first album contained a few harsh moments (the “rushing” sections of Heroin and the improvised noise of European Son), a coarse, distorted sound totally dominated their second. The stark mood change is explained partly by the chemical and psychological landscape of the time. </p>
<p>The optimistic, fragrant and colourful manner of psychedelic music and art, as expressed in the previous two years (with The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper at its zenith), was replaced by paranoia, depression and anxiety. And the tensions between group leaders Lou Reed and John Cale were nearing boiling point, exacerbated by dangerously extreme use of hard drugs.</p>
<h2>Avant garde</h2>
<p>The unapologetic sound, combined with deliberately deathly artwork, makes White Light/White Heat a very confrontational album. While The Beatles went for purity with their minimalist white Richard Hamilton-designed cover, a beautiful black-on-black image of a skull tattoo (Warhol’s final gift to the group) snarls out at you from theirs, and even the supposed “rock” tracks are disruptive and provocative.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224290/original/file-20180621-137728-oc57ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224290/original/file-20180621-137728-oc57ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224290/original/file-20180621-137728-oc57ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224290/original/file-20180621-137728-oc57ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224290/original/file-20180621-137728-oc57ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224290/original/file-20180621-137728-oc57ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224290/original/file-20180621-137728-oc57ad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Simple cover, complex sound.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>I Heard Her Call My Name contains, according to rock magazine Crawdaddy’s <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=C-Ne8rSuNRoC&pg=PT150&lpg=PT150&dq=Wayne+McGuire,+one+of+the+most+highly-charged+moments+ever+heard+in+music&source=bl&ots=plYGVnPDh3&sig=t4N-OgTkC_xzQsLlmbq8z6F8lo8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjY5oyij-XbAhUjDcAKHT6ZDYgQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Wayne%20McGuire%2C%20one%20of%20the%20most%20highly-charged%20moments%20ever%20heard%20in%20music&f=false">Wayne McGuire</a>, “one of the most highly-charged moments ever heard in music” and features some of the most extreme guitar soloing of all time. Guitar greats such as Robbie Robertson would queue around the block to see Reed play, only to be disappointed by his perceived lack of “technique”.</p>
<p>On title track White Light/White Heat, a crunching bass cuts through a wall of distorted guitars, emerging at the end of the song as the sole survivor, while Moe Tucker’s drums are reduced to a swirling, crashing noise.</p>
<p>Other tracks are revolutionary in a different way – by blending experimental rock with the spoken word. In The Gift, a groove the band jammed to in live shows plays under a short story written by Reed at university, in which a man mails himself to his estranged girlfriend in an attempt to win her back. As you might expect, the ending is bleak, comic, and straight out of a Shirley Jackson novel.</p>
<p>Lady Godiva’s Operation is a disturbing, aural anaesthetic. The lyrics tell the legend of the famously naked Godiva, re-imagined as a cosmetic surgery procedure. Another groovy backtrack is augmented with a slowing pulse, deep breathing and sickening shudders straight out of a low-budget horror film. Both tracks are narrated by Cale – his Welsh lilt adding an extra dimension of strangeness.</p>
<h2>Sister Ray said</h2>
<p>But the most famous track on the album is Sister Ray – a raucous, 17-minute symphony of noise beneath another grim tale of New York’s underbelly. Here the Velvet Underground emulate the improvisation of free-jazz musicians Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor with, in the <a href="http://doczz.net/doc/6473335/the-seminal-velvet-underground-by-jim-derogatis-i.-introd...">words of Reed</a>, “a rock n’ roll feeling”. It is the epitome of the group’s art.</p>
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<p>While other Velvet Underground LPs are now feted and revered, White Light/White Heat remains an enigma. It was virtually ignored on its release in June 1968, shunted aside, as <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MhpKDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT165&lpg=PT165&dq=lester+bangs+velvet+underground+by+safer,+flashier+music+which+eventually+proved+so+stereotyped&source=bl&ots=gm6RUnIySM&sig=57HMg7EYXIPAw8w-KowSgst2Rl0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwij-56GkOXbAhUIXMAKHTvLBvIQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=lester%20bangs%20velvet%20underground%20by%20safer%2C%20flashier%20music%20which%20eventually%20proved%20so%20stereotyped&f=false">Lester Bangs put it</a>, “by safer, flashier music which eventually proved so stereotyped”. But with its harsh sound, strange technical effects, spoken word elements, improvisation and dreadfully poor production, it’s a unique entrant in the pantheon of classic rock.</p>
<p>It became a catalyst for punk rock and New York’s subsequent <a href="http://www.factmag.com/2014/03/10/a-beginners-guide-to-no-wave/">“no-wave” movement</a>. But imitators always lacked the group’s profound engagement with, and ability to combine, avant-garde aesthetics, literary modes of expression, experimental art and primitive elements of early rock and roll. Copycats never had the courage to go as far as Reed, Cale, Morrison and Tucker did on that second LP, and any future musician who does so will be brave indeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Goodall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After the happy psychedelia of the Summer of Love, the Velvet’s second album seemed to usher in a new, darker era in rock musicMark Goodall, Head of Film and Media, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/782722017-05-29T14:01:49Z2017-05-29T14:01:49ZAll dogs go to heaven<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170980/original/file-20170525-23232-13ka93y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lolabelle, the artist and musician Laurie Anderson's dog being taught how to play the piano.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Novelist Franz Kafka <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/171538">wrote</a> in his <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/book/great-wall-china-and-other-short-works/9780141186467">collection</a>, The Great Wall of China and Other Stories:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All knowledge, the totality of all questions and answers, is contained in the dog.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While this is a sweeping statement, it helped unravel my topic – on animals and death, grief and mourning – for a <a href="http://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/arts/afrikaans-dutch/dogs-conference">recent conference</a> on “Dogs in Southern African Literatures”.</p>
<p>In Marlene van Niekerk’s novel <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/special/newlits/triomfweek1.pdf">“Triomf”</a> (1994) the Benade family want to deal with their grief following the death of the beloved dog Gerty. The Benade family buries her in the backyard and Mol decides to compose a tombstone for her. She writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Here lies Gerty Benade. Mother of Toby Benade/and sweetheart dog of Mol ditto.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She then writes, “Wow she’s in dog heaven” and Treppie contributes the final line “Where the dogs are seven eleven” – signifying lucky numbers in the game of dice.</p>
<p>Pop’s dream of dead dogs as angelic beings and Mol’s reference to “dog heaven” suggest there is belief that like their human counterparts, dogs also go to heaven and become angels as a reward for their good conduct on earth.</p>
<p>In many cultures and religions dogs are more than protection and security. They are also company and companions. In some instances the canines are so close to their humans that people wonder about their animals’ after lives. So, do real life dogs actually go to heaven?</p>
<h2>More about love</h2>
<p>In her essay film <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/heart_of_a_dog/">“Heart of a Dog”</a> (2015) American avant garde performer <a href="http://www.laurieanderson.com/">Laurie Anderson</a> deals with the death in 2011 of her beloved Lolabelle, a rat terrier adopted by Anderson and her husband, the singer <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/lou-reed-mn0000233066/discography/">Lou Reed</a>. In the film Anderson also tries to come to terms with the deaths of her mother and Reed in 2013. According to Anderson dealing with these deaths taught her more about love than anything else.</p>
<p>Lolabelle was deprived of her encounters with others in their New York neighbourhood when she became blind and was afraid to move forward into the dark. Anderson got her a trainer who decided first that Lolabelle should literally paint and then actually learn to play the piano.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v37BnyHefnY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for ‘Heart of a dog’.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Initially I thought Anderson was very anthromorphic in her view on dogs when she describes Lolabelle as empathetic, playing the piano, painting pictures and questioning the games played with her.</p>
<p>When asked by film critic Jonathan Romney whether Lolabelle meant more to her than being merely a pet, Anderson <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/mar/27/laurie-anderson-interview-q-and-a-heart-dog-lolabelle-terrier-brighton-festival-lou-reed-o-superman">remarked</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a film about empathy. Lolabelle was a character that was almost pure empathy, so I tried to express that as well as I could.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One could argue that Lolabelle, like the fictitious “Gerty” in “Triomf”, acts as a consoler to Anderson. No wonder film critic Ty Burr <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2015/11/25/heart-dog-ode-lolabelle-and-lou-reed/Elfi3w5SLNfrZholExVnqK/story.html">calls</a> the film,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a unique, exceptionally touching cinematic tone-poem on the subject of mourning. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Afterlife for dogs</h2>
<p>Ensuing from this one could ask: do dogs go to heaven or is there an afterlife for dogs? And as a Buddhist, what does Anderson believe? Her mourning for Lolabelle is grounded in her Buddhist beliefs and there is a long section devoted to the “bardo”, the Buddhist concept of the waiting period between a person’s lives. The spirit of the deceased spends 49 days in the bardo, as is mentioned in the <a href="http://www.near-death.com/religion/buddhism/tibetan-book-of-the-dead.html">Tibetan Book of the Dead</a>. </p>
<p>And other belief systems? There are varied views even within different faith groups. Recently Pope Francis <a href="http://time.com/3631242/pope-francis-dogs-heaven-catholic-church/">told</a> a young boy whose dog has died that paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170982/original/file-20170525-23232-1rm4slm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A deacon blesses a dog at a Catholic Church in the Netherlands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jerry Lampen/Reuters</span></span>
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<p>Islam offers no clear answer. In Islam all souls are eternal, including those of animals. But in order to get to heaven, or Jannah, beings must be judged by God on Judgement Day, and some Muslim scholars say animals are not judged as humans are. </p>
<p>Buddhism also sees animals as sentient beings like humans, and says that humans can be reborn as animals and animals can be reborn as humans. So given that, the question of whether or not animals can go to heaven doesn’t really apply to Buddhists. Humans and animals are all interconnected.</p>
<p>Hinduism also outlines a type of reincarnation, in which a being’s eternal soul, or jiva, is reborn on a different plane after death, continuing until the soul is liberated (moksha).</p>
<h2>Popular culture</h2>
<p>In popular culture, the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096787/">“All dogs go to heaven”</a> (1989) focuses on “Charlie B Barkin” a German shepherd dog who is killed by “Carface Caruthers” a violent, sadistic mixed American Pit Bull Terrier/Bulldog gangster. This film was followed by a sequel in 1996. Assessing the movies Hillary Busis (2014) <a href="http://ew.com/article/2014/11/17/all-dogs-go-to-heaven-messed-up/">describes</a> it as,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a horrifying phantasmagoria of murder, demons, drinking, gambling, hellfire, and blue eyeshadow.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Animals (and then dogs in particular) go to heaven as is suggested by the title of the film. However, Christian scholars are quick to remark that the only ticket to heaven and salvation is having a soul and putting that soul into serving some or other higher being. But as Wesley Smith (2012) <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/april/do-pets-go-to-heaven.html">put it</a> in Christian Today: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have come a long way since Descartes claimed that animals are mere automatons without the capacity for pleasure or pain. We now know the contrary is true: They experience. They suffer. They grieve. They love. </p>
</blockquote>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170981/original/file-20170525-23267-1vetmgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1168&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">US musician and director Laurie Anderson,poses during a photocall for the movie ‘Heart of a dog’ at the 72nd annual Venice International Film Festival, in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ettore Ferrari/EPA</span></span>
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<p>Anderson situates herself as the narrator in “Heart of a Dog” right from the start and intersperses the tale of Lolabelle with stories about her own childhood and more current events such as the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks">9/11 terror attacks</a>.</p>
<p>The autobiographical nature of her text is foregrounded throughout in an attempt by the artist to deal with Lolabelle’s sickness, pain and death. Anderson echoes several Buddhist teachings on mourning: crying is forbidden because crying is confusing to the dead. One wants to summon the dead back by weeping, even though it is impossible to do so. One should also feel sad without being sad.</p>
<h2>Flying between heaven and earth</h2>
<p>So to return to my initial question: do dogs go to heaven? My contention is that it primarily depends on your belief system but most religions agree that the sentient animals around us also belong in an after death Shangri La or utopia. It suspends our search for certainties and meaning; and in the metaphor of the film, it is our attempt to confuse the dead within the bardo. </p>
<p>We want to call them back. We wish they could be like “Charlie B Barkin” who could fly back and forth between heaven and earth. Or, we want them to be dog angels like Triomf’s “Toby” and “Gerty” who will once again be our companion animals in the otherworld.</p>
<p>The tale of Laurie and Lolabelle is a guideline to grief, a way to deal with death. It is Anderson’s own book of the dead. It dissolves the binary between human and animal but it also acts – albeit indirectly perhaps – as a device to repress grief.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78272/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marius Crous does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In many cultures and religions dogs are more than protection and security. But do they have an after-life?Marius Crous, Associate Professor of Languages and Literature, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192062013-10-28T09:25:49Z2013-10-28T09:25:49ZPunk’s fairy godfather: Go-Between John Willsteed on Lou Reed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33923/original/gfx5jgtk-1382940197.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">"Lou Reed had always been good at stories. Plots. Characters. Tiny novels put to music."</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frank May/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the way in to work, I heard someone on talkback radio, sharing about Lou.</p>
<p>He had driven Mr Reed around Brisbane when he was there in 1974. </p>
<p>All Lou wanted to do was to go shopping. Record shopping. What was he looking for? Linda Ronstadt’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4edvNAtAwE">Heart Like A Wheel</a>, and Dobie Gray’s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaPnOASOWIU">Drift Away</a>. They are all now silenced. Linda by Parkinson’s and its terrible effects, Dobie in 2011, and now, finally, Lou.</p>
<p>Cantankerous Lou. Surly Lou.</p>
<p>In the early 1970s in Brisbane, young men and women dreamed away sweaty afternoons learning Status Quo songs. </p>
<p>King Crimson and Yes drifted from windows out into the heat haze, fighting with lawnmowers and V8s. </p>
<p>I was 13 in 1970, and the city’s northern suburbs were my home. These bands, and plenty more, were carefully passed down to us by older brothers and their friends: The Grateful Dead and Hendrix, Grand Funk Railroad and The MC5 – 60s bands with lots of guitars. And they were played through huge speakers with lots of bottom end, or radiograms with a stack of vinyl, waiting to drop one at a time onto the patient turntable. Depending on the brother, the Velvet Underground was in the stack.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33879/original/x9d358k6-1382920408.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33879/original/x9d358k6-1382920408.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33879/original/x9d358k6-1382920408.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33879/original/x9d358k6-1382920408.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33879/original/x9d358k6-1382920408.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33879/original/x9d358k6-1382920408.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33879/original/x9d358k6-1382920408.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33879/original/x9d358k6-1382920408.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">dwhartwig</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The other entrance to this world was the record store, but there weren’t that many in Brisbane. </p>
<p>Lou discovered this in ‘74. </p>
<p>We were drawn to the air-conditioned cool of the city for the groovy stuff that these import shops had: Roxy Music, Eno, Bolan and Bowie. It was Bowie and Mick Ronson who gave us <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531/lou-reed-transformer-20120524">Transformer</a> in 1972 and said: “Here kids, this is Lou.” And it was the record store guy who said: “If you like that, you’re gonna LOVE this!” and out came VU and Loaded and <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531/the-velvet-underground-and-nico-the-velvet-underground-20120524">The Velvet Underground & Nico</a>. Doors to a darker, vibrating, dense place where there seemed to be no rules.</p>
<p>And within a year or two, the New York bands and the London bands were showing us all.</p>
<p>They called it punk. We cut off our hair, unlearned those Genesis and Yes songs, and went louder and simpler. Every band I was in for the next 20 years did a Velvets song. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33875/original/t3t2q5kw-1382920032.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33875/original/t3t2q5kw-1382920032.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33875/original/t3t2q5kw-1382920032.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33875/original/t3t2q5kw-1382920032.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33875/original/t3t2q5kw-1382920032.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33875/original/t3t2q5kw-1382920032.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33875/original/t3t2q5kw-1382920032.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33875/original/t3t2q5kw-1382920032.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">-Jeffrey-</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jim Dickson from The Survivors (and eventually <a href="http://www.radio-birdman.com/indexM.html">Radio Birdman</a>) started it one blistering Brisbane day, teaching me not only how to play Sunday Morning, but showing me that simpler is often better. We tore a leaf, many leaves, out of the Velvet’s book: one chord will do, noise goes with anything, a pop song is still a pop song. Lou knew about pop songs. He had started out writing for <a href="http://www.discogs.com/label/Pickwick%20Records">Pickwick Records</a>, which was like our <a href="http://www.popcultmag.com/passingfancies/websiteoftheweek/ktel/ktel.html">K-Tel</a>.</p>
<p>But the real lesson from Lou was about darkness. There was an aching inside us, whether here in Brisbane or on the Lower East Side, that he wasn’t scared to address. He was cynical and romantic and funny, but mainly he was fearless. </p>
<p>And he talked about the world we all knew: junkies and drag queens and cops and endless waiting. Every town had these. Every town, everywhere. Transformer made sense to us, as The Velvets had.</p>
<p>And then, in 1978, came <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/street-hassle-19780406">Street Hassle</a>.</p>
<p>Lou Reed had always been good at stories. Plots. Characters. Tiny novels put to music. Street Hassle contained my favourite Lou story, and my favourite Lou lines:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You know, some people got no choice
and they can never find a voice
to talk with that they can even call their own.
So the first thing that they see
that allows them the right to be,
why, they follow it. You know, it’s called bad luck.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bkG9BKgDvNI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Lou Reed, Street Hassle, 1978.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I can’t even think too long about this song, its tragedy is so visceral. But it has balance and resolution – it is love and loss and redemption in equal measure. Lou was a great writer. And that’s why we kept playing Lou songs, when we were going to play covers at all. Because they were great stories. </p>
<p>They called him the godfather of punk. That’s what they called Iggy Pop. And William Burroughs. So the overuse is acceptable, because the company was so damn good.</p>
<p>I’d be happy to have those three as my fairy godfathers.</p>
<p><br>
<strong>Further reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/transformer-the-other-faces-of-lou-reed-19599">Transformer: the other faces of Lou Reed</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-rock-remembrance-rip-lou-reed-19602">The art of rock remembrance: RIP Lou Reed</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lou-reed-wrote-the-rule-book-of-what-makes-pop-great-art-19613">Lou Reed wrote the rule book of what makes pop great art</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Willsteed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On the way in to work, I heard someone on talkback radio, sharing about Lou. He had driven Mr Reed around Brisbane when he was there in 1974. All Lou wanted to do was to go shopping. Record shopping. What…John Willsteed, Lecturer, School of Media, Entertainment, Creative Arts, Music and Sound, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195992013-10-28T02:09:09Z2013-10-28T02:09:09ZTransformer: the other faces of Lou Reed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33897/original/sy84kq5s-1382925029.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reed, who died today, knew how to place himself at the centre.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The plaudits have arrived very quickly for Lou Reed, who has died aged 71. He is clearly regarded as a towering figure, credited with playing a central role in creating one of the most influential albums in rock history, 1967’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Velvet_Underground_%26_Nico">The Velvet Underground & Nico</a>. </p>
<p>He also helped prepare the ground for the emergence of both glam and punk. Throughout his life, Reed always seemed to be the grumpy centre of a zeitgeist.</p>
<p>Oddly, my immediate memory of Lou Reed is of him sitting on a Honda scooter saying: “Hey. Don’t settle for walking.” I saw him on television when I was a teenager, back when you couldn’t watch things over and over again on your phone. There he was on our suburban American television and then he was gone. It was almost like it didn’t happen at all.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lDLAM48TmJQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">It did happen.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Looking at the ad again on YouTube this morning, I was struck by how normal Reed looked, how outwardly healthy and considered he appeared when he was sitting on that red scooter as his immortal track Walk on the Wild Side hummed along underneath, accompanying jump cut scenes of New York at night.</p>
<p>One of the comments under the video was a simple, perplexed wail from “daveny1979”, posted a few months ago: “THIS HAPPENED????”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33873/original/vdv5tn3d-1382919878.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33873/original/vdv5tn3d-1382919878.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33873/original/vdv5tn3d-1382919878.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33873/original/vdv5tn3d-1382919878.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33873/original/vdv5tn3d-1382919878.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33873/original/vdv5tn3d-1382919878.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33873/original/vdv5tn3d-1382919878.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33873/original/vdv5tn3d-1382919878.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=757&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Velvet Underground & Nico.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">oddsock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It did.</p>
<p>There seems to be a need among many of Reed’s obituarists to turn him into the Great Artist “we” always knew he was. His band was the most influential, his work the most daring, his feelings the most felt.</p>
<p>But it seems to me that Reed’s biography, the simple facts of his life alone, should complicate the attribution of any such simple superlatives. He was a much more interesting artist than most of these merely laudatory portraits suggest.</p>
<h2>Coney Island Baby</h2>
<p>In a recently reissued copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Uptight-Story-Velvet-Underground-Classic/dp/0711991707">Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story</a>, there is a passage that seems to capture something important about Reed.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33890/original/4pqxp2rd-1382922796.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33890/original/4pqxp2rd-1382922796.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33890/original/4pqxp2rd-1382922796.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33890/original/4pqxp2rd-1382922796.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33890/original/4pqxp2rd-1382922796.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33890/original/4pqxp2rd-1382922796.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33890/original/4pqxp2rd-1382922796.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Was Lou Reed a Great Artist lionised in books, film and obituaries or a deft and adaptable shape-shifter?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Rhodes</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The book is more or less just a very interesting collection of a lot of very long quotes from people who were there in New York when all those events we think we know so much about were happening.</p>
<p>There is one passage from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Conrad">Tony Conrad</a>, now regarded by many as a very important artist, but who was then just a member of an almost entirely notional pseudo rock-and-roll band. Conrad catches something about Reed that seems crucial to explaining a lot of what followed.</p>
<p>Conrad describes how, when he and The Velvet Underground founding member John Cale lived together at 56 Ludlow Street in Manhattan:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[w]e had been working with LaMonte [Young] for some time doing very austere regimented things which were pretty intense.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33880/original/9x4gf62t-1382920537.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33880/original/9x4gf62t-1382920537.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33880/original/9x4gf62t-1382920537.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33880/original/9x4gf62t-1382920537.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33880/original/9x4gf62t-1382920537.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33880/original/9x4gf62t-1382920537.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1262&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33880/original/9x4gf62t-1382920537.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1262&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33880/original/9x4gf62t-1382920537.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1262&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reed’s high-school yearbook.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a hard day’s work at the coalface of <em>avant-garde</em> aesthetics, Conrad says he used to like to come home and play Hank Williams and blast selections from his “huge 45 collection”. He says that he and Cale found “something very liberating about the whole rock thing”.</p>
<p>It just so happened their next door neighbour knew some guys who ran a record label out on Coney Island who said, “they were looking for some guys with long hair to form a rock band”. At one of his neighbour’s parties, they met the guys who ran the label, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickwick_Records">Pickwick Records</a>.</p>
<p>In the course of what Conrad describes as an “interview”, they agreed to go:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>out to this weird cinderblock warehouse … packed floor to ceiling with records and in the back these sleazeballs and weirdos wearing polyester suits had a little hole-in-the-wall room with a couple of Ampex tape recorders in it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Conrad continues:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What had happened was they’d gone back there with one of their staff writers, gone crazy one night and recorded a couple of their songs. They’d decided they wanted to release them, but needed a band to cover, because the executives and creepos had made the record.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Conrad and his bandmates listened to the record, called The Ostrich, and agreed to “play some gigs to promote the record”. The next weekend, he remembers, “they came around and picked us up in a station wagon and John Cale, Walter De Maria and I began going out to these gigs trying to break the record.” (That’s the celebrated minimalist sculptor <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2013/jul/29/walter-de-maria-art-lightning">Walter De Maria</a>; apparently he played drums.)</p>
<p>When the car arrived, they discovered that their band had a fourth member, “the guy who’d actually written and recorded the song – that was Lou Reed. He was 22.”</p>
<h2>Shape-shifter</h2>
<p>Reading the multitude of memoirs and exegeses from New York in the 1960s, one too easily gets the sense of massive tectonic plates smashing into one another, forming new landmasses in the process. We lose a lot if we only rely on these received narratives.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33876/original/yy2fr3zk-1382920104.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33876/original/yy2fr3zk-1382920104.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33876/original/yy2fr3zk-1382920104.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33876/original/yy2fr3zk-1382920104.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33876/original/yy2fr3zk-1382920104.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33876/original/yy2fr3zk-1382920104.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33876/original/yy2fr3zk-1382920104.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33876/original/yy2fr3zk-1382920104.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nicolas Armer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lou Reed was a complex character. He was just as able to work his way through a fly-by-night organisation like Pickwick Records as place himself at the heart of Andy Warhol’s complex and sometimes tough social and artistic world.</p>
<p>The Velvet Underground, and the larger enfolding spectacles of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/sevenages/events/art-rock/exploding-plastic-inevitable/">The Exploding Plastic Inevitable</a> and The Factory, were not just places where art got made. They were a fashionable, high-profile, and exclusive milieu.</p>
<p>Whether hustling records at the margins of the music industry or working with some of the most celebrated artists of his time, Reed was always particularly capable at placing himself at the centre of things and making himself matter to them. </p>
<p>He will be missed.</p>
<p><br>
<strong>Further reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-rock-remembrance-rip-lou-reed-19602">The art of rock remembrance: RIP Lou Reed</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19599/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Fairchild does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The plaudits have arrived very quickly for Lou Reed, who has died aged 71. He is clearly regarded as a towering figure, credited with playing a central role in creating one of the most influential albums…Charles Fairchild, Senior Lecturer in Popular Music, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196022013-10-28T00:52:57Z2013-10-28T00:52:57ZThe art of rock remembrance: RIP Lou Reed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33871/original/wbm797sg-1382919751.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reed's death – like his life – is generating headlines and strong emotions. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">appelogen.be</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The death of Lou Reed today, aged 71, is unquestionably a sad day for popular music.</p>
<p>Already Rolling Stone has compiled a <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lou-reed-velvet-underground-leader-and-rock-pioneer-dead-at-71-20131027">genre-defined obit</a> focusing on how Reed worked as a Transformer (pun intended, sorry.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis has called Reed “The Man Rock Music Was Waiting For”, writing a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/27/lou-reed-velvet-underground-rock-music">beautifully detailed but also appropriately gushy piece</a> comparing his innovation to Elvis, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan. Let the trainspotters begin.</p>
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<p>The New York Times has taken a more nuanced approach by acknowledging Reed as a man of [polite contradictions](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/arts/music/lou-reed-dies-at-71.html?_r=0](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/arts/music/lou-reed-dies-at-71.html?_r=0), while on social media fans from around the world have circulated personal tributes and listening sessions.</p>
<p>A particularly touching one came from Neil Finn, who simply tweeted:</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33874/original/rfyq9twd-1382919975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33874/original/rfyq9twd-1382919975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33874/original/rfyq9twd-1382919975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33874/original/rfyq9twd-1382919975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33874/original/rfyq9twd-1382919975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33874/original/rfyq9twd-1382919975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33874/original/rfyq9twd-1382919975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/33874/original/rfyq9twd-1382919975.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter</span></span>
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<p>Such tributes to Reed from fellow musicians are making headlines after his death, but tributes to the singer-songwriter from Brooklyn have been flowing for a long time.</p>
<p>Covers, remakes and references are now the thing that lawyers argue over to the smallest semiquaver if the price is right. But these artist statements are proof the music really has made an impact.</p>
<p>It’s one thing to have your art move someone to action; it’s another to move them to make new art all over again.</p>
<p>There are countless examples of Reed’s influence on new artists since he first put pen to paper, and voice to tape. But beyond the lo-fi, art/rock punk poets that are already rightly <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/lou-reed-mn0000233066/related">getting their day</a>, we can consider the unlikely artists who took Reed’s idea of innovation and went somewhere unexpected.</p>
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<p>Last month Sydney MC Solo and producer Adit, aka Sydney hip-hop duo <a href="http://www.elefanttraks.com/artists/horrorshow">Horrorshow</a>, covered Walk on the Wild Side for triple j’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/tv/video/lav.htm">Like A Version</a> sessions to great acclaim. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Hip-hop duo Horrorshow’s cover of Walk on the Wild Side.</span></figcaption>
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<p>When a little folkie from Adelaide decided to call his band The Coloured Girls, he probably did cop a bit of flak for the choice. But Paul Kelly was clearly struck by the simplicity of shining a light on something often constantly present but never acknowledged in music. </p>
<p>The Coloured Girls – the name a reference to the classic Reed track, Walk on the Wild Side – became a new platform to explore the otherwise overlooked closer to home. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Kelly and The Coloured Girls’ Darling, It Hurts.</span></figcaption>
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<p>At the other extreme, when U2 took it to 11 with their <a href="http://www.amazon.com/U2-Live-Sydney-Limited-Edition/dp/B000HEZC7U">Zoo TV tour</a> in the early 90s, Reed’s commitment to the show in the biz was referenced without irony. Bono took the mask off when he dueted with Reed for Satellite of Love. Reed appeared on a screen warbling gently, allowing the Irish boys to demonstrate they could actually do something beautiful despite having run away with the circus.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Lou Reed and Bono duet on Satellite of Love.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Reed’s influence was not just on weedy singer songwriters or would-be rock gods, but also stretched to some of the really dark and lonely recesses of popular music. </p>
<p>When TV talent quest ugly duckling Susan Boyle asked to perform Perfect Day, many considered it sacrilege – how dare someone so mainstream, so unhip, so inappropriately loved, dare declare Reed’s influence? </p>
<p>Despite initial reports suggesting Reed’s <a href="http://pitchfork.com/news/39998-lou-reed-makes-susan-boyle-cry/">resistance</a> to the idea, Reed help produce <a href="http://www.stereogum.com/569622/lou-reed-directs-susan-boyles-perfect-day-video/video/">the final product</a> that let Boyle celebrate her relative remoteness to mainstream cool. Some were horrified, others were humbled.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Reed helped produce the video for Susan Boyle’s cover of Perfect Day.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Either way it was proof that music, once out there, can affect anybody.</p>
<p>Satellites of love for Reed will continue, in unlikely places, for years to come.</p>
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<strong>Further reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/transformer-the-other-faces-of-lou-reed-19599">Transformer: the other faces of Lou Reed</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Giuffre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The death of Lou Reed today, aged 71, is unquestionably a sad day for popular music. Already Rolling Stone has compiled a genre-defined obit focusing on how Reed worked as a Transformer (pun intended…Liz Giuffre, Lecturer of Media, Music and Cultural Studies, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.