The eight songs Lou Reed crowned as the best of the 20th century
If you were to assign one artist the mantle of New York songsmith, it’d have to be Lou Reed. Above Ramones, Public Enemy, or even Ella Fitzgerald, Reed dreamed up lyrical vigenttes and snapshots of the city’s seemier underbelly with poetic reportage, marrying street-level edge with a sincere core of affection for the runaways, drug pushers, and sex workers that formed the working-class make-up of Lower Manhattan across the 1960s and ’70s.
Reed had been capturing New York’s grubby soul since fronting The Velvet Underground. Flashing an acidic counter to the West Coast’s Summer of Love indulging in psychedelic excesses, 1967’s The Velvet Underground & Nico debut stood as that year’s Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band gritty riposte, occupying a space in Andy Warhol’s Factory bohemia and bristling with lyrical bite.
With their avant-garde decadence and raw examinations of the urban milieu, Reed had paved the way for punk’s insurrectionary wrecking ball that would launch a whole new branch of musical mythology to burst from CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. Yet for all his contemporary snarl and enthusiastic embrace of confounding new terrain—from hip hop dallying, an extreme noise double LP, and a collaboration with thrash metal giants Metallica—Reed was fundamentally a creature of the pop hits of his youth.
Along with his literary heroes, while studying at Syracuse University, he was influenced by Hubert Selby, William Burroughs, and Delmore Schwartz, and a love of the American musical tapestry scored his dark love letters to New York. Classic soul, doo wop, jazz, and 1950s rock ‘n’ roll all found their way in Reed’s work, serving as a venerable gateway to Americana while also establishing new and strange dimensions for Americana’s musical landscape—much like Hollywood surrealist David Lynch had achieved in his film work.
Approached by VH1 for a 100 Greatest Songs of Rock ‘n’ Roll feature in 1999, Reed characteristically ignored the request for 100 nominations and presented eight. Largely staying in the world of soul, Reed revealed a deep and profound affection for the Black performers that dominated the charts during his Velvets and solo heyday, and selecting nothing later than the 1970s.
Lorraine Ellison’s 1967 stormer ‘Stay With Me’ takes the first pick—a powerhouse number that hovers over his later ‘Perfect Day’ hit—and Otis Redding’s ‘Lovin’ You Too Long’ stands proudly in his bag of beloved soul pieces. Ike & Tina Turner’s ‘River Deep – Mountain High’ with Phil Spector in the producer’s chair makes the cut, and Memphis’ lesser-known soul hit factory Hi features a selection with Ann Peebles’ ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’.
Curiously, Elvis Presley’s very first single ‘That’s All Right’ makes Reed’s collation, and the little-known ‘Outcast’ from R&B duo Eddie & Ernie. To round off his curatorial offering, Reed lifts two choice cuts from Al Green‘s The Belle Album, ‘Georgia Boy’ and ‘Belle’. Dropped late 1977 during the end of his secular pop era, Green delivers a surprisingly lo-fi soul funk package that makes up for its lack of sonic sophistication with Green’s sheer magnetism and pastoral vocals.
With an eight-track selection largely confined to one slice of America’s rich musical tradition, Reed revealed where his heart lay as both a musician and a fan.
Lou Reed’s eight favourite songs of the 20th century:
- Lorraine Ellison – ‘Stay With Me’
- Eddie & Ernie – ‘Outcast’
- Otis Redding – ‘Lovin’ You Too Long’
- Ike & Tina Turner – ‘River Deep – Mountain High’
- Al Green – ‘Georgia Boy’
- Al Green – ‘Belle’
- Elvis Presley – ‘That’s All Right’
- Ann Peebles – ‘I Can’t Stand the Rain’
