The 1933 song Lou Reed wanted for himself: “I wish I had come up with that”
There isn’t any such thing as a perfect song, but Lou Reed‘s ‘Perfect Day’ might be the closest thing to it.
Of course, not just because of its aptly named title. We don’t deal in reductives here, so simply labelling it as perfect because of its connotation to a hypothetical perfect day is very low on the list. No, the song is perfect because of how it is rooted in the careful balance of emotional feelings, which question the true essence of happiness, a feeling buoyed by a melodic composition that is beautiful and haunting in equal parts.
Near musical perfection was Reed’s speciality, however. Rarely was he found turning in something mediocre, and so his discography often became the envy of the music world.
Even though they were close friends and collaborators, the great enigmatic Bowie couldn’t help but be envious of Reed’s work, once saying, “Anyone who heard Lou sing ‘Junior Dad’ will never forget the experience of that song, torn out of the Bible. This was rock & roll taken to whole new levels.”
But like most geniuses, Reed had the sort of troubling complex that prevented him from ever enjoying his own work. His gaze was consistently focused forwards and that meant he barely had time to ponder on the contemporary greatness of his own music. Ultimately, that’s what forced him to abruptly leave The Velvet Underground or cascade into the worlds of experimental music with Metal Machine Music.
He was constantly searching for something that maybe he would never find himself, but only in the work of others. Because, despite the countless songs he had written himself, it was the work of someone else that he regarded as the one idea he wished was his.
“It is a big deal to lay bare those emotions on a pop record; only a handful of performers have dared do it so consistently,” he once answered, when questioned about the essence of musical genius. It’s funny because it’s hard to know whether he was talking about himself there, or at least his peers around him. He made a habit of making his distaste for everyone clear, and so it was a wonder if anything contemporary pleased him.
Clearly, it didn’t because he was either so intently focused on the future, or in this case, the past, harking back to 1933 to find a song that he wished was in fact his. He continued, “You’re confused because you’re thinking about pop music and pop records, or rock ‘n’ roll,” Reed said. “Think about Brecht and Weill, ‘Seven Deadly Sins’. Boy, now I wish I had come up with that one first.”
The composition for a 40-minute ballet shows exactly where Reed’s brain was at in terms of processing music. Despite being the pioneer of rock and roll, he had already grown out of it and was looking back in order to figure out how to move forward. Of course, he would never create anything like ‘Seven Deadly Sins’, but it was the constant pursuit of such that made him the artist he was.
