The real reason Lou Reed thought The Beatles were “garbage”
To look back at Lou Reed and his wickedly sharp tongue is to see the very nature of rock and roll in action. The leading man of The Velvet Underground was both a fierce critic and a deliberate enemy of the notion of criticism. He was an observer and a commentator despite despising those who observed and commented on him, once labelling journalists “scum”. It is this flagrant duality that made him such a restless icon.
Across a myriad of interviews, Reed would confirm himself as a confounding creator hell-bent on speaking his mind but unwilling to do so whenever a tape was running. It would make the moments he did open up to his interviewer pure box office and usually meant that many of his contemporaries were in the firing line. In this interview, the singer lashes out at The Beatles and explains why the biggest band on the planet was, according to him, nothing better than “garbage”.
As part of the Blank on Blank project, which sees the production company take the famed interviews of some of rock and roll’s most illustrious names and turn them into animated form, the group have now had their way with a very special Lou Reed interview.
As part of the Velvet Underground, one of the most iconic bands in New York’s history, Reed has garnered legendary status for writing his highly intelligent yet profoundly connective rock and roll. The music the group would produce was both deliberately provocative but utterly drenched in pop sensibilities, a subversion which would only win the band huge swathes of fans after their demise. In the interview, he shares his views on Velvet Underground’s primary goals and offers a rather cutting appraisal of The Beatles.
The audio offers a really accurate portrayal of the genius alt-pop man in all his caricatural joy, the ‘Perfect Day’ singer is talking with Joe Smith in the recording and isn’t afraid to put out his stall in the 1987 interview. Hit with the question, “Do you wish you (the VU) weren’t so left-leaning?” Reed quickly replies succinctly: “No. I started out with that in mind”.
Then he starts to dig deeper into Reed and The Velvet Underground, a tumultuous subject at the best of times. Reed offers up a quick portrait of his early life as a writer “wanting to write the Great American Novel” and his journey into the ‘bar band’ world. When asked what the goals of the Velvet Underground were, Reed replies, “To elevate the rock n’ roll song, to take it where it hadn’t been taken before.” And in his opinion, and many others, they did just that by creating a unique standard of music that was both avant-garde and universal.
In the clip, Reed also takes aim at those who had the Velvet Underground in their crosshairs. He quite rightly points out that while the press was losing their minds about the content of songs like ‘Venus in Furs’, Reed had lifted most of its contents from a book of the same name. To him, it seemed ludicrous that literature should have special dispensation over music.
He also talks about the band’s ode to opium ‘Heroin’, he said: “I write a song called ‘Heroin’ and it’s like I murdered the Pope or something.”
Reed continues, “I just wanted to cram everything into a record that these people had ignored. Which, ya know, left you with everything”. Throughout his career, Reed managed to do just that.
While keen to point out the Velvet Underground’s purpose as a rock and roll outfit, he was equally quick to point out artists who didn’t have such an impact. “The other stuff couldn’t even come up to our ankles the level we were on.”
The Doors are the first band mentioned in the clip, which Reed, gnarly and gravel-toned, describes as “stupid” then it’s on to the biggest band of all time, The Beatles. What did Reed think of them? “Garbage”. In the full interview, which you can hear here, the singer goes on to trash quite a lot of his contemporaries, including The Doors.
In a unique vision of just how malleable Reed was at times, it should be noted that he wasn’t always a disgruntled detractor of the group. Reed was clearly fed up with the eclipsing durability of The Beatles’ legacy in 1987, but in the 1970s, he was quoted as saying: “They just make the songs up, bing, bing, bing. They have to be the most incredible songwriters ever – just amazingly talented. I don’t think people realise just how sad it is that the Beatles broke up.”
In truth, the real reason Reed labelled the band “garbage” is likely more simple — he felt like it. Reed was a difficult interview, to say the least, and part of that was his unpredictability. He was happy to say whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, given half the chance, and on that day, he took aim at who most considered to be the best band of all time. And, if you’re looking for a secondary reason, the very fact that this is the popularly held belief is as good a cause as any for Reed to hate them.
