The Literary Influences of LOU REED

Рет қаралды 38,224

Күн бұрын

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Lou Reed is best known as the frontman and lyricist of the highly influential band The Velvet Underground. Additionally, Reed has released multiple solo albums that have seen widespread critical acclaim. In today's video, I look into the brief stint in the early 1970s when Reed considered dropping music altogether to focus on writing, as well as looking into how his early love of literature helped formulate his iconic simple style of lyricism.
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MUSIC USED:
1. Music: Nevada City - Huma-Huma • Nevada City - Huma-Hum...
2. Music: Eureka - Huma-Huma • Eureka - Huma-Huma (No...
3. Oxygen Garden by Chris Zabriskie chriszabriskie.com
Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0
Free Download / Stream: bit.ly/oxygen-garden
Music promoted by Audio Library • Oxygen Garden - Chris ...
4. Music: Armchair Stella Crossing - Puddle of Infinity • Armchair Stellar Cross...
5. Music: Vespers - Topher Mohr and Alex Elena • Vespers - Topher Mohr ...
6. Music: In Albany New York - The 126ers • In Albany New York - T...
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FOOTAGE USED:
1. The Velvet Underground In Boston (1967) www.ubu.com/film/warhol_velve...
2. Scenes of the Life Of Andy Warhol, 1982 www.ubu.com/film/warhol_scene...
3. Bill and Tony (1972) www.ubu.com/film/burroughs_bi...
4. Berlin (2007) www.ubu.com/film/reed_berlin....
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SOURCES:
1. faroutmagazine.co.uk/lou-reed...
2. themillions.com/2019/07/13-so...
3. schlemielintheory.com/2013/10...
4. www.poetryfoundation.org/harr...
5. www.anothermanmag.com/life-cu...
6. lithub.com/the-time-lou-reed-...
7. Lou Reed Delmore Schwartz (Syracuse) | jewish philosophy place
8. • Video
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CHAPTERS:
1. Introduction (0:00)
2. Delmore Schwartz (2:35)
3. The Velvet Underground (7:05)
4. The Velvet Underground - I'm Waiting for the Man (9:13)
5. The Velvet Underground - Venus in Furs (11:05)
6. The Velvet Underground - Heroin (13:08)
7. The Velvet Underground - European Son (15:07)
8. The Final Three Albums (16:49)
9. Reed's Poetry Reading (18:44)
10. Conclusion (21:53)
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All criticism and comments are welcome. Thanks for watching.

Пікірлер: 94

@seanpanigel5494 Жыл бұрын

Lou Reed is a certified lyrical genius, and sadly enough, doesn't get recognized enough as one of the greatest lyrics and poetry writers in history. He's still criminally underrated.

@pena.3302 10 ай бұрын

Disagree..as Those whom know of Lou Reed/John Cale .the Pickwick time..Im kinda glad that he's Always bern loved in European Countries..A Big splash hit lp..wouldve messed a bit w/-The Lou Reed We all know n love now..Rec;The A.M.C.Doc Rock n Roll heart.Personly think his Songs tell the best Things..all thru..ps;Thank goodness For Laurie Anderson..!!

@robertcoogan6421 Жыл бұрын

I can't imagine how many hours went into researching the text of this presentation. The finding of the images used was also an enormous feat. And the typeface is historically accurate. A brilliant, admirable construction! Thank you.

@TheSelador Жыл бұрын

No problem man, thank you for watching.

@thediamonddog95 Жыл бұрын

Influence for Heroin : heroin

@Xxxxxrrr6464 8 ай бұрын

I hope it wasn’t the death of him

@kelechi_77 Жыл бұрын

"The Gift" as a short story is actually amazingly written for a rock song, so it's no surprise it was originally a short story he wrote in the early '60s.

@rashotcake6945 Жыл бұрын

Honestly, I’d read that story just as entertainment, with no music

@arisumego Жыл бұрын

@@rashotcake6945 i have done this actually

@serjtankian5474 Жыл бұрын

Waldo Jeffrys had reached his limit

@dwightcronenweth7901 Жыл бұрын

@@serjtankian5474 It was now mid-August, which meant he had been separated from Marsha for more than two months.

@jamesgreenldn Жыл бұрын

@@dwightcronenweth7901 Two months, and all he had to show was three dog-eared letters and two very expensive long-distance phone calls.

@Stwinky Жыл бұрын

Awesome video essay and nice editing. I never knew about Schwartz. A Bollingen prize winner turned addict is a very Lou Reed influence

@joseybryant7577 Жыл бұрын

A similar video on Patti Smith might be interesting. Particularly her reverence for Rimbaud

@TheSelador Жыл бұрын

I will definitely look into that. I am considering making this "literary influences of..." a series so she'll definitely be on the list alongside Ian Curtis, David Bowie, Kurt Cobain etc. Thanks for watching :)

@joseybryant7577 Жыл бұрын

@@TheSelador Oh man, looking forward to Ian Curtis. J.G. Ballard wrote some wild stuff.

@TheSelador Жыл бұрын

@@joseybryant7577 I havent read him myself but I'll have to give him a go. I think Ian had an encounter with Burroughs once and Burroughs told him to fuck off haha. Should be an interesting one!

@petederek7174 Жыл бұрын

Jim Morrison was also a fan of Rimbaud, along with Artaud, Blake, Huxley, Camus, the beats, etc. Be interesting to see one on his influences. Good job on this one brother

@TheSelador Жыл бұрын

@@petederek7174 I'll stick him on the list, thank you for the suggestion!

@humorustrout. Жыл бұрын

Great video! Also a book of note would be "A Walk on the Wild Side" by Nelson Algren, written in 1956.

@lysanderofsparta3708 Жыл бұрын

What Baudelaire was to 1840's-'50's Paris, Lou Reed was to 1960's-'70's New York.

@greenvelvet Жыл бұрын

To me I think that's one major difference between the music and art of the 60s/ 70s and music of today. Back then, bands were informed by literature, but the music of today seems to be mostly inspired by other music and pop culture nostalgia. So you're getting a shadow of a shadow a copy of a copy. Lou Reed name the songs after books. Bands of today named their songs after Velvet underground songs. Imitating ideas of which they have no idea the origins or meaning

@willdenham Жыл бұрын

So that's the Delmore Lou was referring to in that great first track of The Blue Mask. Interesting that was Lou's first album after he cleaned up and he talks about the the spirit of his 'teacher, poet, and wandering Jew.' being present.

@Pouriya787 Жыл бұрын

This is a sensitive and gentle approach to Reed's life and poetry. But in referring to Delmore Schwartz, and mentioning some of Schwartz' mentors, I think you did a great deal of injustice by not mentioning Mr. Saul Bellow's "Humboldt's Gift" (where Humboldt is the pseudonym for Delmore). This book is a brilliant and savoury eulogy to Mr. Schwartz and his work.

@seano6859 Жыл бұрын

What an amazingly niche but interesting KZfaq topic

@trevorwg4878 Жыл бұрын

You HAVE to make this a series! dude this gives so much life and inspiration to me as a songwriter and tons of others such as myself who’ll stumble upon this video (and hopefully this series). You’re very much appreciated, I just subscribed and turned your notifications on because of this video

@TheSelador Жыл бұрын

Thank you, I appreciate that a lot. Next vid in the series will be on Ian Curtis! If you have any suggestions for musicians to look into in the future feel free to let me know. Good luck with the music as well man, hope all goes well for you :)

@trevorwg4878 Жыл бұрын

@@TheSelador Someone already mentioned it so I know he’s on your list, but David Bowie!

@antonionogueira2914 8 ай бұрын

I was 15 when I first lisened to VU in The Doors movie. Big Lou and Jim's fan. No internet back then so took me time to track their literary influences. But once I did I found a brand new world, from the beat generation to Rimbaud... read all that im your teens and you will become a differente person. So thank you for this presntation. I wish many teens today will track those brilliant artists thanks to this video.

@user-ry3yf3je1h Жыл бұрын

i feel like this channel was made for literally all my interests. Bravo

@markwebster5749 11 ай бұрын

Bringing the sensitivities of the novel to rock music 😎awesome!!

@Lyndanet 7 ай бұрын

“Sister , I’m a poet”-S.M. I love this mini doc it’s too cute

@manhattenman6075 9 ай бұрын

My favourite work of Reed’s is ‘Berlin’ it’s a masterpiece of an album musically and lyrically and a heartbreaking story.

@literaturenthusiast4284 3 ай бұрын

I commend you for the historical accuracy that went into this. You need to make more of these, perhaps the literary influences of Paul McCartney? Or Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin)? I'm itching to know more about the literary inspirations of my favorite music!

@christy7698 Жыл бұрын

This was SO much fun to watch. Thank you for taking the time to make this.

@TheSelador Жыл бұрын

No problem, thank you for watching!

@kzustang Жыл бұрын

Brilliant. Simply brilliant. So much important information in this video. Really great analysis. I loved ebrything about it. No matter how much I study Reed's work, there's always something under the hood which is left in the dark.

@NagoyaHouseHead Жыл бұрын

I've always felt that Lou was the urban Dylan

@thegreenbird795 Жыл бұрын

Dylan could be a bit long winded..Lou was concise and to the point...

@NagoyaHouseHead Жыл бұрын

@@thegreenbird795 I would argue that Dylan when he was on form did not include fluff even when the song was long. I mean, which verse can you take out of Desolation Row ? Or The Hurricane ? Or Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts ?

@crunkboy Жыл бұрын

that’s how i feel as well. Dylan was a poet with a folk background and Lou was one with a more rock (punkish?) background. There’s honesty in both of their stuff but just in different ways

@WHOAM1894 Жыл бұрын

I really appreciate how you tied in your literary expertise into the Art Rock world. The literary aspects added much more depth to this video. They gave me an enriched perspective on Reed as a literary talent as well as a musical one. It's interesting to consider how those two fields played into each other with Reed's work. Good work!

@moonsappho Жыл бұрын

wow this was such a great video essay. thank you for putting the time in to create this!!

@marcraventos67 Жыл бұрын

You forgot to mention he specifically dedicated one song -a marvellous one, by the way- to Delmore Schwartz in his album "The Blue Mask" which is his best album, in my opinion. Thanks a lot & congratulations, anyway!

@TheSelador Жыл бұрын

You're right I completely forgot to mention that, it mustve slipped my mind somehow haha. Thanks for watching!

@gerardmasmitjavalle5864 Жыл бұрын

You did an amazing job on this!! Thank you very much.

@Wharfares Жыл бұрын

You’re a legend for making this

@jakehardyyy Жыл бұрын

would love to see one of these on someone like robert smith or even morrissey despite his horrific post smiths outbursts

@TheSelador Жыл бұрын

I've stuck them on the list, thank you for the suggestions!

@WhitmoreReads 7 ай бұрын

This is really good. Thanks for all the work that went into it. ❤

@risboturbide9396 Жыл бұрын

Solid video, man. Cheers 🍻🍻

@joedoe783 6 ай бұрын

This was very good. Well done for putting it together.

@tannergilliland3257 Жыл бұрын

this was wonderful. thank you

@owenlee3103 Жыл бұрын

amazing video!!

@tm-jz5ge Жыл бұрын

love love loved this

@MrOswald 11 ай бұрын

A brilliant video, you explain everything very detailed. I was always curious about the poetic interest of Lou Reed. Undoubtedly a great artist.

@manny4552 Жыл бұрын

Reed was an interesting guy a great artist

@hanykhalil2264 Жыл бұрын

Keep up the good work man 👍

@sonyabladesbooty3890 Жыл бұрын

His work became increasingly less literal as more time passed and his frustrations with the band grew. The 3rd VU album was his attempt to steer away from the more avant garde work of the first two albums. Not only are the lyrics to those songs less a complex tapestry of words, but the music itself was more digestible and converse to the type of music on the earlier albums. See the demos from the recording of the 4th album to see just how far Reed came from where he begun as a poet. Ironically, his songs later took on a more poetic edge in his solo career for a brief time (see: Berlin).

@seanpanigel5494 Жыл бұрын

It's not ironic. I think you're a little missing in facts. The band sounded softer and abandoned the avant-garde sound after the second album because member John Cale(who was the avant-garde member of the group), left the band. Loaded was commercially sounding and far from the sound of the debut because the record company wanted a commercial radio hits album, so you could say Lou Reed was kind of "forbiddened" from writing about Taboo topics like he used to. The self titled album, lyrically, wasn't far from Lou Reed's style. It's still very much Reed. It still discusses many Taboo issues like Transgender woman for example(candy says). Only once Reed left the band and went to his solo work, that he went back to his roots and started discussing and writing about the things he usually writes about. Loaded was the only album where Reed wasn't himself lyrically.

@sonyabladesbooty3890 Жыл бұрын

@@seanpanigel5494 Cale didn't "leave" the band. Lou Reed booted him because Reed was ready to make a concerted effort to move the band away from the style of the first two albums and towards something more commercially viable, and the last two VU albums are the products of that effort. There's interviews with associates of the band like Michael Carlucci that say that Lou couldn't sanction Cale's ideas, like recording music with amps submerged underwater. In other words, if Lou Reed was truly going to make the Velvet Underground more accessible then Cale had to go. So that's what Lou did.

@seanpanigel5494 Жыл бұрын

@@sonyabladesbooty3890 whether it's true what you say or not, what I said about Reed's lyrics still stands. the only album that wasn't in Reed's style lyrically, was Loaded. the self titled album, and right from the beginning of his solo career, are 100% Reed's style. and the self titled album has amazing amazing poetic very well worded lyrics, I don't know what you're talking about. read After Hours and tell me it's not amazing poetic or very well worded lyrics. Reed didn't steer away from his lyrical style or high level of poetry on the self titled album. only on Loaded. once he started his solo career, he went back to his style.

@sonyabladesbooty3890 Жыл бұрын

@@seanpanigel5494 I didn't say there wasn't a poetry to those songs. I said the style of those songs are distinctly different than on the first two albums. And he most definitely did change up his songwriting on the third album, both in lyrical content and in the music style itself. The only song on that album you can even argue is anything like the previous albums is "The Murder Mystery".

@chancethadood Жыл бұрын

this is the most epic summary of im waiting for the man ever. i’m imagining it’s john cleese speaking it

@pantherpet790 Жыл бұрын

One of my favourite KZfaqrs ever

@cwdkidman2266 Жыл бұрын

Okay, so he didn't write the great American Novel. He ONLY wrote The Great American Rock Album. While the title of Great...Novel is still up for debate, no one can deny that The Velvet Underground And Nico IS The Greatest Rock Album in history. AND he was no former cookie stealing from blues and Appalachian guys right and left. He may've cribbed a few doo-wop lyrics, but that's it. Like the Beatles, he started in the 50s and never looked back. And the Velvets gave birth in 1966 to the greatest marriage of sound and sense since...well, no one was as great. All arguments for albums 2,3,4, and VU are acceptable. Even Live 1969 is acceptable.

@TheSelador Жыл бұрын

WARNING: FLASHING LIGHTS BETWEEN 9:15 - 16:45 Subscribe to my Substack for free weekly updates on the behind-the-scenes of The Selador! selador.substack.com/?r=g86pk&

@darylcumming7119 Жыл бұрын

Haaaa.

@Goatchild90 5 ай бұрын

Great video. Lou Reed is definitely one of the great American writers.

@courtneygillespie Жыл бұрын

Stetson showed me the velvet underground, Changed my life.

@Paul-dw2cl Жыл бұрын

it all culminated to Lulu

@giancassa9340 Жыл бұрын

The Velvet Underground changed my life

@_scabs6669 Жыл бұрын

A deeper analysis of certain songs from Loy Reed's solo career would be cool

@seanshea8596 Жыл бұрын

I saw Lou Reed perform Poe's "the Raven" at bumbershoot. The asshole children threw batteries at Lou Reed and one person hit him with a "C" cell.

@iloveweezer69 Жыл бұрын

excellent

@darylcumming7119 Жыл бұрын

RIP.

@robdawson2 Жыл бұрын

Playing Bloom to my Dedalus.....!!!!!

@KennethDumasig12 Жыл бұрын

+1 subscriber

@Every-picture-tells-a-story Жыл бұрын

I like the Banana 🍌 Album

@philsophkenny 7 ай бұрын

😮

@KennethDumasig12 9 ай бұрын

Can you create video about Kurt Cobain? Lyrics,Poetry,Short Story and Paintings

@ogmiosseaculum1-tradiciona528 Жыл бұрын

👍🏻👆🏻👍🏻

@genericusername337 Жыл бұрын

This was more like a lyrical analysis. I wanted a list of books.

@oppothumbs1 Жыл бұрын

Reed had dyslexia. He couldn't write more than a few lines at a time. Maybe that is why his only choice was poetry or Hemingwayesque writing.

@KRZYHIPPY Жыл бұрын

Where does Lou get his inspiration? He reeds.

@geirsakariassen4728 Жыл бұрын

OPSAN

@Waferdicing Жыл бұрын

🙀

@onlinepersona123 Жыл бұрын

I really want to watch this but your voice is not pleasant at all. Recommend working on this 👍

@poetryandcrime Жыл бұрын

What are you on about mate? His voice is fine

@johnlee5423 Жыл бұрын

🤣🤣🤣🤣

@brianstockwell4069 Жыл бұрын

I recommend you reverse your lobotomy!