In the most recent episode of the PBS animated series “Blank on Blank,” the iconic Lou Reed opens up about his music, the lyrics he wrote, and his distaste for other musicians, particularly The Beatles in a rare 1987 interview with Joe Smith, longtime record executive and author of the 1989 book Off the Record.
The other thing that killed me was stuff like this had been in novels so long, it was like nothing. I write a song called “Heroin”, you would have thought that I murdered the Pope or something. It should have been, “now we can get a lot of people who have talent for writing and everything into rock and roll. We’ll all write about really adult stuff.” That was what I wanted to do, is write rock and roll that you could listen to as you got older, and it wouldn’t lose anything; it would be timeless, in the subject matter and the literacy of the lyrics
image via Blank on Blank
