Who played piano on ‘Perfect Day’?
It’s hands-down one of the greatest double A-side singles of all time.
And to this writer’s eternal embarrassment, it failed to be included on our ‘Ten best double A-sides list’. Dropped in November 1972, Lou Reed flashed a confident twofer with the ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ / ‘Perfect Day’ single, shaking off the lukewarm reception of his eponymous solo debut with a strutting skulk through New York’s gutter glamour. On the former was a starry-eyed love letter to Factory ‘It-Girl’ and transgender pioneer Candy Darling, and the latter a pleasantly ambiguous stroll around Central Park with a loved one as the evening sets and the darker moods rear their head.
To this day, ‘Perfect Day’ is thought to wander an allusive path between ‘nice day out’ and the warming effects of heroin through the veins, bolstered by its scoring an overdose scene in the Trainspotting smack comedy. We’ll never know for sure. Reed was never one to play it completely straight with the press or reporters, more than happy to chuck misdirection, fibs and downright mythmaking in an effort to amuse himself and torment the interviewer when he felt like it.
“No,” he told BBC Radio in 2000 frankly, “You’re talking to the writer, the person who wrote it. No, that’s not true. I don’t object to that, particularly…whatever you think is perfect. But this guy’s vision of a perfect day was the girl, sangria in the park, and then you go home; a perfect day, real simple. I meant just what I said.”
Whatever its meaning, ‘Perfect Day’ will live on as one of The Velvet Underground frontman’s most immortal works, possessing both a languid, ‘opiate’ meander of reflection and an epiphany stirring and strangely romantic that only Reed could ever reach. It’s also all down to that celestial piano, the keys handled by a minor star in his own right in the early 1970s.
So, who played piano on ‘Perfect Day’?
A smattering of notable session players all boast credits on the Transformer album, Herbie Flowers handling ‘Walk on the Wild Side’s’ iconic bassline and old Beatles associate and Revolver illustrator Klaus Voorman also picking up bass duties.
Then there’s the Ziggy connection. Fresh off his Martian impact on the world of glam rock, David Bowie fancied himself as a co-producer, roping in his breakthrough record’s studio man, Ken Scott, for engineering and mixing, plus fellow Spiders from Mars bassist Trevor Bolder swapping bass for the trumpet.
In came Mick Ronson. Laying down the scorching guitar parts with Ziggy Stardust’s backing band, Ronson not only shared production duties for Transformer but also performed ‘Perfect Day’s’ thrilling piano piece and managed its string arrangements, deftly handling its minimal yet complex rolling arpeggios cascading across multiple keys.
‘Perfect Day’ stands as one of Ronson’s finest moments. While etched into rock immortality with his guitar attack on the likes of ‘Ziggy Stardust’ or ‘The Jean Genie’, Reed’s pensive perusal through a very New York brand of acerbic love song deserves just as much stature in Ronson’s musical legacy.
