Everybody wants to Lou Reed. Mr. Tony may not understand why, but it's true. The lyrics don't seem to mean much of anything, but the video is definitely trying to ape the old Velvet Underground look. Psychedelia in black and white looks apocalyptic.
Do I want to be Lou Reed? I don't konw, but I'm fascinated by people who do. One of my old favorites: The Dandy Warhols. It might be a bad pun, but as an hommage it doesn't get more blatant. They also "borrowed" The Velvet Underground banana.
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| Welcome to the Monkey House - The Dandy Warhols |
The Pixies' song "Here Comes Your Man"? It bears at least a passing resemblance to The Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for My Man". By the song titles, both could seem could be about about waiting for a lover. But the they are actually about waiting for a drug dealer to show. (Well, the Pixies song perhaps only obliquely. Perhaps that interpretation is only in play when you are thinking of the Velvet Underground in the first place.)
My favorite Lou Reed song? "Take a Walk on the Wild Side."
Of course that's probably everybody's favorite Lou Reed song. So why not go for something more original? I'm kind of fond of this one too...
Even Supernatural wants to be Lou Reed. Perhaps the best scene the show ever did was when they used "Heroin" by The Velvet Underground as a backdrop for Crowley shooting up.
Music incorporated into television works best when it hints that show is appealing to some kind of universal experience beyond it's own universe. It's when a light bulb goes off that makes you say, "Oh, this isn't just about the show anymore." It why I like the end of season 4 of Venture Bros. so much.
I think I called it transcendent once. It made me sound pretentious and hyperbolic simultaneously, but I was just trying to convey the music combined with the visuals combined with the acquired history of the show's characters led to a moment that you felt on a deeper level than just arc of the show. (By the way, don't think that Jarvis Cocker and Lou Reed are all that dissimilar. Jarvis Cocker = lead singer of Pulp. I forgot to explain Lou Reed = lead singer of The Velvet Underground for a time.)
Also before I go farther, a quick shout out to Supernatural for the following scene:
It's just a devastating scene. And it's just a devastating song. It understands that the saddest songs are the ones that sound hopeful. The dissonance between tone and message is just emotionally eviscerating. There are some Beach Boys songs like that. But Supernatural gets an A+ for the music in season 9. The choice of soundtrack is usually spot on anyway. Surprisingly varied and with depth given how much the focus is usually on that song by Kansas. Despite it being kind of a cheesy song, they always use it really well. It almost redeems the existence of Kansas. Well, maybe not for Mr. Tony... If only he was a Supernatural fan. (THAT is what it's like when worlds collide!)
Wow, that stream of consciousness rant, went way far afield. What does the song mean? Hell if I know. Maybe it's just sheer vapidity. Maybe it's just about how cool you can look in blue jeans and leather. Perhaps that's the ultimate triumph of Lou Reed. Blue Jeans and leather.
Maybe I just needed a song to bring down the rave up portion of the mix and, as my mind so often does, it drifted back to the music and videos I was paying attention to when I first came to college. I'm not sure I even like Ladytron that much. Critics would complain of their choice of style of substance. (That sounds suspiciously similar to quantity of quality.) They seemed to finally come around on the album, The Witching Hour, which was enough to convince me to buy that album. This song wasn't on it though, which is why I ultimately never listened to it very much.
Maybe I just have a thing for putting songs with the same title, but from different groups on the same CD. It sounds like a ridiculous college English assignment. Here are three songs with the title "Blue Jeans" by three different artists. Compare and contrast...
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