The Lou Reed song Brian Wilson calls his favourite: “A great songwriter”
In many ways, The Velvet Underground and The Beach Boys were polar opposites through the 1960s and early ’70s. Wholly representative of a geographical phenomenon, wherein the sunny scapes of California threw out warm optimism against the East Coast’s cold depravity, respective bandleaders Lou Reed and Brian Wilson seemed worlds apart. ‘Sister Ray’ and ‘God Only Knows’ are chalk and cheese.
Reed understood this polarity more than anyone and, as a general rule, wasn’t a big fan of his West Coast rivals. In an early 1970s interview feature, wherein Reed slandered a few of his eminent contemporaries, he took a swipe at the California-based psychonaut and wannabe Beat poet Jim Morrison and his band The Doors.
Pulling no punches, Reed described the band as “just painfully stupid and pretentious, and when they did try to get ‘arty’, it was worse than stupid rock and roll.”
He added: “What I mean by ‘stupid’, I mean, like, The Doors.”
Summarising his unambiguous views on The Doors, Reed took aim at the wider West Coast scene. “We had vast objections to the whole San Francisco scene,” he explained. “It’s just tedious, a lie and untalented. They can’t play, and they certainly can’t write.” However, this attack certainly didn’t apply to Wilson. Even those unphased by The Beach Boys’ masterworks would find it difficult to claim that Wilson and his brethren were “untalented” or couldn’t write.
In 1966, around a year before The Velvet Underground released its seminal debut album, Reed penned a review of The Beach Boys for the publication Aspen Vol 1 No 3 Section 3. “There is no god, and Brian Wilson is his son,” Reed wrote, using the highest praise in the atheist dictionary. “Brian Wilson stirred up the chords. Deftly taking from all sources, old rock, Four Freshman, he got in his later records a beautiful hybrid sound.”
Addressing the disparity between the East and West coasts, Reed compared the Beach Boys to a Manhattan band. “Like demented unicorns the East went West, and, it, all, made, it,” he noted. “It wasn’t really a long cry from such early classics as ‘Peppermint Stick’ by the Elchords (in N.Y. there are stores which sell old rock records for as much as $500).”
Wilson and Reed seemed to maintain mutual appreciation despite failing to cross paths too much throughout their careers. When Reed passed away in 2013 following a struggle with liver disease, Wilson was among the star’s venerable peers to write a wonderful tribute. “Lou Reed was a great songwriter and storyteller. I especially connected with his ballads,” Wilson wrote on his official Facebook page. “I think ‘Sad Song’ was one of my favourites. He will truly be missed.”
‘Sad Song’ appeared on Reed’s 1973 concept album Berlin. The song concludes the LP’s tight narrative as a melancholy reflection on the covered tragedy. While Wilson is best known for his upbeat songwriting triumphs, he has known great tragedy and hardship in his personal life. He can obviously connect with the emotion of ‘Sad Song’ but also appreciates a fine composition when he hears one.
Listen to Lou Reed’s ‘Sad Song’ below.
