Willow ,'Potential'
There's a lady plays her fav'rite records/On the jukebox ev'ry day/All day long she plays the same old songs/And she believes the things that they say/She sings along with all the saddest songs/And she believes the stories are real/She lets the music dictate the way that she feels.
That song is pretty enough to justify its own existence.
Insider trivia: The super cool bass on that song is played by Herbie Flowers - the leading British session man of his day. He also plays the bass on the equally cool glam era hit "Rock On" by David Essex.
So how do you classify Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side"?
Proto-post-punk-pop?
Even nicer WOTWS trivia: the sax solo was by the guy who taught Bowie sax when he was 12. I love that.
Bowie and Reed were, um... close at the time. Bowie produced Transformer and sang backup on one song.
Damn, this is another album that I have had on LP for ages that I need a CD version. Or else get it from the the iTunes music store.
edit:
Crap, iTunes music store does not have Transformer. Maybe I should see Spider Man and check out a music store. BTW, does anyone like Songs for Drella?
"Walk on the Wild Side" is the Platonic ideal Lou Reed song....
BTW, does anyone like Songs for Drella?
One of the best albums of the '90s. Why people mention the vastly inferior New York as Reed's creative renaissance I'll never know.
I'm not so crazy about Songs for Drella, and New York hasn't aged well at all. The rest of Lou's 90s output was so abysmal that it's not worth having an opinion about.
There's some reasonable songs on Magic and Loss. But Drella (I admit I haven't listened to it this decade) is wonderful.
I was very pleased recently to read on Neil Gaiman's blog that he finally had The Talk with his daughter Holli -- that is, the talk in which he explained to her that she was named for the character in "Walk on the Wild Side." She thought it was cool, mercifully.
I haven't listened to Drella in about five years. I just bought it on iTunes and am listening to it now. Some songs sound kinda dumb (lyrically) but overall I'm really liking it.
I used to love New York, but I just haven't been able to get into it for a while.
One of my favorite Reed songs of the last 20 years is "My Friend George." (Edit: off of New Sensations.) I just love that song to death.
Yeah, I haven't listened to Drella for a bunch of years. I should go back and review it, but I just shudder at the memory of how Not Good I though it was at the time.