“So fucking funny”: The song Lou Reed listened to for two months straight
Lou Reed is often cited as a cornerstone of influence for modern artists. Enigmatic and experimental, he thrust rock music’s capabilities further into nuanced artistic realms while simultaneously becoming one of music’s most prolific songwriters.
While he was singular in his own right, he made no bones about his admiration for Bob Dylan. Reed was a musician who loved literature just as equally as he loved the technical elements of a good blues song, so Dylan’s occupation of the space between those two facets was undoubtedly a source of intrigue for Reed.
His ability to make mainstream success of an authentic literary expression informed Reed that there was, after all, a place for his individuality in modern music. So much so that in 1963, Reed set up a microphone at home, long before establishing the music career we’d all eventually known him for, to cover a Bob Dylan song. His lyrically adapted version of ‘Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright’ provides an early insight into Reed’s songwriting while unashamedly showcasing his love for Dylan.
“Dylan continuously knocks me out,” Reed once said, plainly admitting his love for the artist. “The kind of phrasing that knocks me out is Dylan’s. For language, Dylan kills me to this day.”
So it’s unsurprising that in the fleeting moments in which Reed allowed himself time to give up artistic individuality and cover the works of another artist, it was usually a Dylan song he would turn his hand to.
One of his favourites is Dylan’s 1983 ‘Foot of Pride’. A four-on-the-floor beat platforms Dylan’s gritter, somewhat frustrated vocal take, which speaks to the sort of emotionally rough style that Reed began to master in his own career. The song is almost a perfect soundtrack for the crossover of tastes the two shared and ultimately could not have been adequately covered by anyone but Reed.
“That’s the song I picked to do at Bobfest (in New York in 1992). I’d been listening to it almost every day for two months”, Reed said.
That night in Manhattan saw the likes of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Sinéad O’Connor and George Harrison all take the stage to share their love of Dylan. But while the rest of his contemporaries chose more iconic tracks from Dylan’s discography, Reed chose to cover this bootleg track of his in what was the standout showing of dedicated fandom.
“It’s so fucking funny,” Reed said about the song. “‘Did he make it to the top? Well, he probably did and dropped.’ There are so many verses, it was impossible to learn. G E Smith (who was part of the band that night), who was playing with me, turned the pages. There is a lot of anger here. It’s not the Three Stooges.”
Watch as Lou Reed performs a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Pride of Foot’ as part of the 1992 event ‘Bobfest’.
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