“People expect me to badmouth him”: the unexpected songwriter Lou Reed called fabulous
A titan of underground culture, Lou Reed was a spokesperson for the outsiders of the music industry. From the very early days of his songwriting journey, the New York native dedicated himself to experimentation and the subversion of mainstream trends. As a result, he quickly garnered a reputation as something of a musical elitist with a detest for commercial success. In reality, though, Reed could always identify great songwriting in whatever form it arrived, inspiring an appreciation for multiple mainstream songwriters.
Reed cut his teeth as a co-founder of The Velvet Underground along with John Cale. Although, in the present day, The Velvets are rightly hailed among the most influential and groundbreaking bands of all time, they were largely ignored during their tenure. Even the support of pop art pioneer Andy Warhol could not manage to break Reed’s songwriting into the rock mainstream, but then The Velvet Underground never aimed for mainstream success. Their goals lay within experimental songwriting and subverting the norm – a song called ‘Heroin’ was never going to top the singles chart.
These themes continued into Reed’s solo career, as he refused to bow down to the pressures of commercialism and consistently marched to the beat of his own drum. Still, his work became increasingly appreciated by widespread audiences as his career progressed. By the late 1970s, Reed was already afforded something of a legendary reputation within the world of alternative and underground music—a scene that was constantly evolving.
As such, you would be forgiven for assuming that the Transformer songwriter had contempt for the songwriters populating the charts at that time. While there were undoubtedly some artists for whom he did not care, he was always quick to heap praise on certain deserving songwriters. One such figure, who you might not expect Reed to be a fan of, was The Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen.
Springsteen has been a colossal figure within the mainstream of American music for decades, and the 1970s saw his commercial breakthrough with albums like Born To Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. At his core, though, Springsteen has always been a gifted songwriter who has stayed true to his own principles and artistic aims. Seemingly, that dedication to doing things his own way struck a chord with Reed, who recruited him to perform on the 1978 track ‘Street Hassle’.
An expansive 11-minute epic, the track features a spoken word section towards the end, during which Springsteen references his defining anthem, ‘Born To Run’. As Reed once revealed, the collaboration came about as Springsteen was mixing his latest record in the same studio. “Bruce Springsteen was mixing in the studio below us, and I thought, ‘How fortuitous’,” the songwriter once shared.
“People expect me to badmouth him because he’s from New Jersey,” Reed said, admitting that the pair form unlikely collaborators – either because of the divide between New York and New Jersey or the divide between mainstream and underground. “But I think he’s really fabulous. He did the part so well that I had to bury him in the mix,” the songwriter continued.
So, while Bruce Springsteen and Lou Reed might represent different ends of the musical spectrum, each songwriter could appreciate the authenticity and artistic dedication of the other. “I knew Bruce would take that recitation seriously because he really is of the street, you know,” Lou Reed concluded, showing his clear admiration of The Boss.
