“One of the greatest ever written”: Which song did Lou Reed return to every single day?
Lou Reed was never satisfied with taking the easy route in rock and roll. There would be a handful of moments when he would make something that fit within the confines of the three-minute pop single, but even when looking at his first songs with The Velvet Underground, there was no reason to believe that something like ‘Venus in Furs’ had any business being on the charts. That’s because Reed wanted to do everything outside the norm. He knew that playing on the edge of culture was always more fun than catering to the musical meat market.
I mean, look at the kind of people he inspired later down the line. From David Bowie to Iggy Pop, Reed’s contemporaries always knew that it was far more interesting to take a song format that everyone expected and twist it slightly. People might have an idea of where a song like ‘Sunday Morning’ might be going in the first few seconds, but going through the first of the Velvets’ debut album, Reed was willing to talk about the most debaucherous pieces of New York and let everyone sit in that filth for however long they wanted.
Although it wasn’t all in the spirit of being different, Reed simply had more eclectic tastes than many rock and rollers before him. Even if he had respect for what people like Little Richard and even Bob Dylan could do with the format, he was as informed by poets as he was about musicians half the time. If there were any other genre he could call his true love, though, it would be the sounds of jazz.
And it’s not hard to see why the artist would cater to something with a looser structure. While the likes of Miles Davis built their jams around carefully constructed musical themes, the art of improvisation was what drove some of his best moments. ‘Sister Ray’ is far from the most thought-out piece in music history, but that’s because he was working with his guitar the same way Ornette Coleman was using his horn.
Coleman had always been one of Reed’s greatest influences, and the true power came from how he twisted the notes around whenever he played his brand of jazz. Not everything was meant to sound nice and tidy from top to bottom, but when listening to something like ‘Lonely Woman’, Reed felt that there wasn’t a single note out of place once the tune started.
Compared to his contemporaries who cited songs like ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ or ‘Long Tall Sally’ as the moment they got into music, ‘Lonely Woman’ always held a special place in his heart, as he said, “The first thing I was listening to was Ornette Coleman. And then the idea of drones in back of it. But it’s Ornette, it’s always been Ornette. ‘Lonely Woman’ is one of the greatest songs ever written. Not a day goes by without me coming back to it. It’s an amazing album, but that track…”
While the album can take someone for a ride, ‘Lonely Woman’ may as well be the basis for everything Reed wanted to do. There’s not a moment in the song that goes by where someone can predict where it’s going next, but as opposed to sounding caustic or atonal, it feels like being taken on a roller coaster ride throughout its duration before finally parking at the finish.
It may be a bit abrasive for someone not affiliated with jazz, but anyone who is even marginally familiar with Reed’s material or even a handful of Velvet Underground songs would know exactly where he’s coming from when talking about this tune. Because like all of his greatest works, it is simultaneously abrasive, a little bit off-putting, and absolutely beautiful.
