Lou Reed 1942-2013

[noonan mckane]

I just got home from work and read the terrible news that one of my heroes has died. Lou Reed was the guiding spirit of The Velvet Underground, who were the greatest ever American rock and roll band.

I can still recall so vividly the first time I heard "White Light/White Heat", the Velvets' 2nd album, and how I was literally shaking afterwards, stunned and awestruck by the ferocious noise, energy and excitement of it, the dark, dense and glorious racket it made. There is nothing else in all of music, indeed, in all of the arts, like The Velvet Underground. And there is no one else like Lou Reed. Elvis, Dylan, The Beatles, all of these may have outsold Lou by a million to one, but none of them re-routed the direction of rock and roll music the way Lou did. He could have you in tears with songs as beautiful as 'Pale Blue Eyes' as effortlessly as he could make you think that there was blood running out of your speakers as you listened to things like 'I Heard Her Call My Name'.

Lou goes now to where he belongs, in the Tower Of Song. On the top floor, where he'll perpetually be up all night with Robert Johnson, Hank Williams and all those other crazy people making crazy sounds.

Thank you, Lou. A million times thank you.

Fly on, son.