The reason why Lou Reed thought Bruce Springsteen was “really fabulous”
In 1976, Lou Reed and Bruce Springsteen became an unlikely couple when they teamed up on the eleven-minute extravaganza, ‘Street Hassle’. It was a pairing very few expected, but the two of them surprisingly coalesced beautifully and complemented the other magnificently.
At the time, Springsteen had recently been parachuted into the mainstream with his hit album, Born To Run. While he preached to the working man, Reed was the voice of the outsider, but they had much more in common than dividing them. On ‘Street Hassle’, Bruce transported himself into Reed’s mysterious world to deliver an enthralling piece of spoken word.
‘Street Hassle’ is the titular track and centrepiece of Reed’s 1978 album of the same name. It can be split into three sections, ‘Waltzing Matilda’, ‘Street Hassle’ and ‘Slipaway’, which come together to create a masterpiece of pure theatre.
Explaining his creative thinking behind the song, Reed said on his live album, Animal Serenade: “I wanted to write a song that had a great monologue set to rock. Something that could have been written by William Burroughs, Hubert Selby, John Rechy, Tennessee Williams, Nelson Algren, maybe a little Raymond Chandler. You mix it all up and you have Street Hassle.”
Interestingly, it was Reed who sought out Springsteen to assist him on the track, and they’d never even met before the collaboration. However, he was friends with the E-Street Band’s Steven Van Zandt, who managed to make ‘Street Happen’ happen.
Reed later explained (via Dangerous Minds): “Bruce Springsteen was mixing in the studio below us and I thought, ‘How fortuitous’, People expect me to badmouth him because he’s from New Jersey but I think he’s really fabulous. He did the part so well that I had to bury him in the mix. I knew Bruce would take that recitation seriously because he really is of the street, you know.”
‘Street Hassle’ is one of the darkest moments from Reed’s vast repertoire, dealing with death and debauchery. The former Velvet Underground singer received criticism over the song, but in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Reed defended his artistic right to offend. “If this was a novel or a movie, this stuff would be no big deal,” he told the publication in 1978. “But in rock and roll, the parameters you’re allowed to work in are so horrifyingly narrow. If you do anything other than pure, surface optimism, you seem to come off as intrigued with the dark, murky, kinky, down side of existence. It’s just a little realism.”
He continued: “I think it’s fine and dandy that people enjoy themselves and they’re happy and everything, but to constantly paint that picture leads to a general dullness on the part of the listener. He’s just shocked when he finally gets to the reality of it all and finds out that he’s been lied to.”
Listen below to the seismic moment when the “really fabulous” Springsteen joined forces with the inimitable Reed.
