‘Caroline Says II’: Lou Reed’s solo masterpiece
As the co-founder and principal songwriter for The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed had sealed a lofty status by the end of the 1960s. However, beyond Andy Warhol’s bohemian underworld, this status wouldn’t be fully realised for some time, even after he quit the band in August 1970.
As he left The Velvet Underground to fend for themselves, Reed returned to live in Long Island with his parents to work at his father’s tax accounting firm as a typist, purportedly earning just $40 a week. He didn’t take much to the daily grind and returned to music in 1971 after signing a recording contract with RCA. Following his poorly received solo debut album, Reed was thrown a lifeline from David Bowie, who had been one of a small contingent of British Velvet Underground followers in the ’60s.
As if repaying artistic debt, Bowie and his guitarist Mick Ronson agreed to help their new friend from across the Atlantic produce his second solo album, Transformer. Released in November 1972, the album boasted a winning formula sprinkled with stardust. Bowie’s voice can be heard throughout the record, both literally and in the thread of androgyny and pomp that is cut with the contemporary glam-rock grain.
Transformer quite literally transformed Reed’s career and introduced a wider audience to his prior oeuvre with the Velvets. Some critics and civilians laugh in the face of Reed’s post-Velvets career, but, although inconsistent, it carried innumerable gems beyond 1972’s transformative masterpiece.
Reed’s finest moment as a songwriter came in 1973 with the arrival of Berlin. The 50-minute rock opera was one of his most ambitious projects, meandering through a ballad collective of varying styles to tell the tragic story of a moribund couple, Jim and Caroline. In keeping with his Velvet roots, Reed deftly scales the delicate subjects of drug use, depression, domestic violence and, ultimately, suicide.
The skeletal frame of the song existed in phases over the five years before. The first track, ‘Caroline Says I’, enters the story after comparatively bright beginnings in the familiar form of ‘Stephanie Says’, a song Reed recorded initially with The Velvet Underground in 1968 during the White Light/White Heat sessions. The mournful ballad joined a series of Reed’s “Says” song variations, including ‘Lisa Says’, and ‘Candy Says’, the latter appearing on the 1969 album The Velvet Underground.
The album begins with the title track, which appeared in a different style on Reed’s solo debut album of 1971. Reed conceived ‘Berlin’ as a singular number that told the story of two lovers; he had been happy to leave it as it was, but his producer Bob Ezrin saw it as merely a beginning of something much grander. He complained that Reed often introduced great stories but never seemed to finish them. In response, Reed wrote nine songs to complete the plot.
Throughout the album, Jim and Caroline descend deeper into irrecoverable sorrow. The most absorbing and thus poignant moment comes at the beginning of side two with ‘Caroline Says II’, which details the abusive relationship with chilling transparency. The lyrics in the first verse read: “Caroline says/as she gets up off the floor/Why is it that you beat me/it isn’t any fun,” bringing the theme of domestic violence under jarring light.
Later, the lyrics develop the story to hint at Caroline’s loneliness, desperation and suicidal considerations: “But she’s not afraid to die/ all her friends call her ‘Alaska’/ When she takes speed, they laugh and ask her/ What is in her mind.”
At the song’s close, Reed sings: “She put her fist through the window pane/ It was such a funny feeling/ It’s so cold in Alaska”. In trademark Reed style, he selected words that appear so transparent and straightforward but carry such ominous weight.
It is never patently revealed why Caroline earns the nickname “Alaska”, but it gives the listener license for interpretation. The cold, desolate landscape of the 49th state represents Caroline’s numb isolation. As she puts her “fist through the window pane”, a shiver in the spine is palpable, as if the air of Alaska had entered the room.
The sub-zero temperatures evoked by ‘Caroline Says II’ grow ever colder as the album winds on towards its haunting and inevitable end. In ‘The Kids’, Caroline’s crying children can be heard as they are taken from her by the authorities and in ‘The Bed’, she finds peace through suicide.
The penultimate song bows out with Jim’s subtle mourning, reflecting Reed’s stony exterior. “This is the place where she lay her head/ When she went to bed at night/ And this is the place our children were conceived/ Candles lit the room brightly at night/ And this is the place where she cut her wrists/ That odd and fateful night”. Alas, beholding his art, it’s obvious that Reed’s cold waters ran deep.
