Delmore Schwartz: The professor who inspired a classic song by The Velvet Underground
Lou Reed once declared The Velvet Underground “really, really smart”. That is likely because Reed himself, the band’s leader, was “very smart”, according to his friends. While trying to get his career off the ground, his focus was split between two things: music and his English degree at Syracuse University, with the latter inspiring the prior when it came to one song.
Reed’s university experience was pretty rocky. He was kicked off his studio radio and caught dealing drugs, almost leading to his expulsion. But it seemed important to him to stick it out and graduate. His friend Richard Mishkin said, “He made sure he took classes, especially as a senior, that you couldn’t fail unless you never showed up.”
All while studying for his BA in English, Reed was trying unsuccessfully to get a band together or start making music. He was doing what a lot of other young creatives were doing at the time and essentially bumming around, testing out different styles and sounds as the era of experimentation progressed. It would only be after he graduated in 1964 and moved to New York City that Reed would meet his bandmates and figure out their distinctive, decade-defining sound. But in the meantime, his years at University provided him with a key source of inspiration.
It’s a clichéd English student experience to be deeply moved by one particular teacher. I hold my hands up to being one of the many with that relatable tale as I doubt I’d even be here writing this if it wasn’t for my English teacher or the lecturer who taught me Dylan songs as poems at university. Reed is just like the rest of us, as he was greatly inspired by one professor and seemed desperate to impress him.
The professor was Delmore Schwartz, an American poet and short story writer who was lecturing at Syracuse during Reed’s years. He called the writer “the first great person I ever met” as he became a mentor figure.
You might imagine that the influence of an English professor would lead to vast and grand lyricism, written like sonnets or epic poems that are desperate to cram in as many impressive words as possible. But in Reed’s case, Schwartz’s impact led directly to his lyrical simplicity. He credits the professor for teaching him how “with the simplest language imaginable, and very short, you can accomplish the most astonishing heights”. As songs like ‘Heroin’ or ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ lean into the power of sparsity and the ability to say a lot by saying little, his old English teacher has his handprints all over them.
He took it even further on the track he dedicated to his professor. In their many meetings, Schwartz and Reed would talk about music, with the poet claiming he hated lyrics in rock songs. So when it came to honouring his influential teacher, the musician wrote ‘European Son’, the track with the fewest words on their debut record. On early pressings of The Velvet Underground & Nico, the track is called ‘European Son (to Delmore Schwartz)’.
There is a sadder side to the story. For a song dedicated to a man who impacted his life greatly, ‘European Son’ isn’t exactly upbeat or even loving. It ends with “your clown’s bid you goodbye” as a kind of bitter so long. The track was recorded in April 1966, and Schwartz died only a few months later. Despite living in the Chelsea Hotel, where Reed and the Warhol crowd regularly hung out, the professor apparently refused to see Reed or let him visit as he fell into total seclusion. ‘European Son’ sounds like a sad but angry farewell from a distance, singing, “Hey hey, bye bye bye”.
But despite the lyrical content, the track still stands as a beautiful way to honour and powerfully impactful influence on Reed’s life and legacy. The musician once said that his motivation in life was “to bring the sensitivities of the novel to rock music”, as he seemed to dedicate his career to merging the lessons he learnt from Schwartz with his rock spirit.
