It’s not exactly news that Lou Reed was an asshole. But a new biography of the musician, who died in 2013, suggests that “asshole” may be too mild a description of what he was. A better word might be “monster.”
That’s the conclusion biographer Howard Sounes reluctantly came to after interviewing 140 of those who knew Reed best. Their recollections of Reed painted a picture of a bitter, angry, volatile man who spewed racist epithets and violently abused women.
The Daily Beast’s Nico Hines has the story:
“I loved his music, but you have to go where the story goes,” Sounes told The Daily Beast. “The obituaries were a bit too kind, he was really a very unpleasant man. A monster really; I think truly the word monster is applicable.”
The genius behind one of the greatest albums of the 1960s, was unstable, egotistical, misogynistic, violent, and selfish, according to some of those who knew him best.
The book — I haven’t read it yet — evidently paints a picture of Reed as a self-centered prick with an acid tongue, referring to Donna Summer as a “nigger” and lambasting Bob Dylan as a “pretentious kike.” In one autobiographical song, Hines notes, he mocked his sister’s husband as a Long Island nobody who “takes the train/ He’s big and he’s fat and he doesn’t even have a brain.”
Paul Morrissey, a prominent personality in the Andy Warhol crowd that Reed hung out with in the 1960s, told Sounes that the best title for a biography of Reed would be “The Worst Person Who Ever Lived. … He was a stupid, disgusting, awful human being.”
As badly as he treated men, Reed was apparently even worse to the women in life. As Hines writes,
Bettye Kronstad, who married Reed in 1973, described life on tour with the tempestuous rock star. “He would, like, pin you up against a wall,” she said. “Tussle you. Hit you… shake you… And then one time he actually gave me a black eye.”
Allan Hyman, an old school friend, said Reed had even been happy to strike a girlfriend while having dinner with him and his wife.
If someone is hitting his girlfriend in public, you can only imagine what goes on behind closed doors.
Reed was a brilliant, innovative musician and songwriter who wrote and performed some amazing songs. But he seems to have been shit as a human being. Somehow I doubt I’m going to go back to listen to any of those old Velvet Underground albums any time soon.
H/T — The Daily Beast
Of course, people are going to claim that his music career totally makes up for what he did, and how we should still love him, like they always do
If we’ve learned anything about celebrities in 2015, it’s this: We don’t actually know these people.
As artists, they might be inspiring.
As people, they might be a great deal less.
Of course, some celebrities are nothing short of perfect: R2-D2. Miss Piggy. Boris & Natasha.
Brings perspective to “Never meet your heroes,” I guess. I’ll probably give it a read if my library gets it, but I may not get past a few chapters :
My biggest beef with him is that he gave permission for that insipid remix of ‘Satellite of Love’.
Seriously, this doesn’t surprise me, but it saddens me none the less.
I’m on the fence as to whether it’s surprising or the least surprising thing ever whenever I hear about how awful some celebrity is or was.
We’re all human with the accompanying foibles and flaws, but it’s gotten to the point that I’m surprised if someone in the public eye is anything above awful all around.
Illustrative aside: One rainy day, my husband and I sat down to watch a program on Frank Lloyd Wright (whose work my spouse has always admired but who he never knew much about personally).
We got as far as Wright abandoning his first wife and their five children, leaving them destitute, when Mr Mockingbird declared, “I’m not sure what chore I’m going to go do, but I’ll find something. Fuck this guy.”
It’s ironic that Reed used an anti-Semitic slur to describe Bob Dylan. Reed himself was Jewish.
Continuing: Especially with creatives, it seems like it’s almost a given that the same mindset that allows for the to stretch or break down the boundaries in their art also allows them to ignore the boundaries generally set around acceptable behavior.
That’s not meant to excuse awfulness, it’s just an observation.
Yeah, we were chatting about something similar on the other thread on how Churchill may have been the best leader Britain had but also had some less than savoury aspects to his character.
That’s the thing with heroes.
Ghandi was a virulent racist.
Emmeline Pankhurst was a borderline fascist.
Cromwell promoted genocide in Ireland.
Do we celebrate their triumphs and ignore their moral failures? Do we right off the good they did in light of what we know about their personalities?
Can we appreciate ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ or should we not watch it?
Is it OK to play Gary Glitter songs at a party?
Should we be idolising John Lennon?
I suppose it all boils down to can we separate the work from the person?
I think it becomes particularly problematic when people are given a pass for misdeeds just because people admire their work.
I’ve been meaning to ask a bigger question about art with problematic aspects, by potentially horrible people. This might be a good thread for it, but I’m on my phone right now. Basically, I’m deeply dependent on modern Jamaican music, where the lyrics often contain violent imagery, sexism/misogyny, homophobia etc. I would like this to change, of course, but at the moment it’s so pervasive in this genre that it’s difficult or impossible to avoid if you’re involved in this scene.
I don’t particularly care for any other genre of music, and it’s not reasonable for me to believe I will stop listening to music altogether. But it does cause me some level of guilt, knowing that I implicitly support this culture by taking part in it. Sometimes I wonder what can be done.
I do believe that the contents of the lyrics are a result of the culture as a whole, so the excuse I’ve been making for myself is to say that the music scene is not the cause of these attitudes, but a symtom. But of course it’s also possible for trends in art to influence the larger culture as well, so it’s not a one way street.
Sorry, I feel like I’m rambling now. This is just always on my mind to some extent, and I’m sure there’s at least someone here who has had similar thoughts/concerns.
I didn’t know who Lou Reed was until I read the news about his death. Oh well.
Well that’s fun isn’t it? (it isn’t)
Reminds me of how another famous musician, Jim Carrey, is against vaccination. Or was he pro-life? Either way, knowing that he is one of those things makes it harder to enjoy his music.
This is why i don’t look into the personal life’s of movie stars, famous musicians and whatnot. If they turn out to be assholes it’s harder to enjoy their work.
Mister Rodgers though, he was cool.
Kat: I’ll be honest–I’m not fond of Miss Piggy, in retrospect. Her “ki-yahh” was a portrayal of domestic violence in a cartoony, comedic fashion, long after we’d started cringing at “To the moon, Alice!” on Honeymooners re-runs, and the scenes of Ricky Ricardo spanking Lucy. (Note: I’m speaking here of the original Muppet Show run; I have yet to see the new one.)
Totally with you on R2-D2 and Boris & Natasha, though.
On a non-depressing note, I’m still scratching my head about what’s wrong with trains. I mean this part:
Either that’s lazy rhyming, or there’s something mock-able about taking trains. I dunno what it is – maybe because buses are cheaper, taking a train is a shorthand for the guy being snobby? Or is it just because he lived far away from the city centre?
Some people are absolutely horrible humans. Being rich and/or famous means more people let them get away with it and excuse the behavior.
I also think it’s possible to express oneself outside the boundaries for acceptable behavior and yet refrain from harming others.
However, I’d guess that some people do have an inner compass that doesn’t get distorted by fame and fortune. I’d be surprised, really, if (for example) Meryl Streep were to turn out to be a monster. While everyone has their bad days, I’d guess most people try to do the right thing most of the time.
@Alan
You ask if we can separate the work from the person. I suppose I could have clarified my concern by asking: can we separate certain parts/aspects of the work from the work as a whole?
Sorry but R2-D2’s views are so reactionary and offensive that they have to bleep out most of his comments just to allow him on screen!
@ dhag
Were you around when we were discussing Tom Jones and Delilah?
It’s interesting that a song which pretty much encapsulates the Steinham quote “Delilah laughs at a man so he kills her” is a party favourite whereas “Boom boom in a batty boy’s head” gets you banned from entering the UK.
I suppose there’s lots to consider in terms of intent, separating the characters in the narrative from the people producing the material etc?
Ugh…..never really listened to his music, but of course I knew who he was.
Disgusting that people can treat other human beings in such a shitty way and hardly get any flak for it. And it always seems that the worst “secrets” come out after the person has died, and obviously can’t be held accountable any more – Jimmy Savile was an example of this.
In the late Fifties to early Sixties, it was considered avant-garde to abuse one’s women. Though the terminology was not yet used, a man who was faithful to a woman and treated her with consideration was beta-cuck; the kind who married and supported one was a dull-witted bourgeois, while a woman who didn’t want to depend on a man at all was “castrating”. The proper woman for these avant-garde men was a cross between a whipped spaniel and a receptacle… and, in her minor way, a cash cow, who humbly worked as a waitress or a cashier and turned over her paycheck to her creative master, who doled out tidbits to his unilaterally faithful and adoring dog, at least when he didn’t feel like kicking her instead. You remember Stokely Carmichael, who said the only position for a woman in the Civil Rights Movement was “prone”? (We hoped he at least meant “supine”). The Second Wave came roaring out of this treatment.
No surprise here. Just listen to some of his lyrics. I do like some of his songs but the misogyny certainly is obvious. When are people going to get the fact that celebraties aren’t always worth celebrating? (except the aforementioned R2-D2s of the world. 🙂
dhag and Alan:
I take the point that it seems hypocritical to ban violent lyrics in Jamaican music while TJ gets a pass, but there are 3 points to be made.
1) Delilah is a song from the 60s, and TJ did not continue to sing songs relating to murder or violence.
2) Take a look at the murder rates in Jamaica generally, and amongst those involved in music in particular – I was looking at a site which showed the latter, and it is pretty shocking how many Jamaican music artists and associates have been murdered.
3) Delilah does not come across as a threat, but as a description of a domestic murder. When Jamaican dance hall/ ragga/ what evs stars have sung homophobic/ misogynistic/ what evs lyrics they mostly come across as threats and warnings, and sometimes glorification and justification.
spacelawn: Jim Carrey is an actor, not a musician. He was an anti-vaxx twit when he was with Jenny McCarthy, who in turn was one of the leading public faces of the “vaccines cause autism” scare, because her kid by a prior relationship was diagnosed as being on the spectrum and she couldn’t handle the idea that she’d had a kid with any sort of problem. (She actually used the word ‘broken’, which should be enough to make anyone familiar with autism froth a bit.)
Neither Carrey nor McCarthy have ever fully renounced their views (though both have been far more quiet about it). It’s worth noting, though, that McCarthy has a legion of folks who despise her and will show up on the comments of any story about her, while Carrey mostly gets a pass. Same goes with actual coverage, for that matter–it’s far more likely to be brought up in articles about her than him.
*********
On the issue of the artist and their art:
I tend to break it down into different categories:
If the artist is dead, then I’m willing to ignore their problematic views, unless those are expressed in their art, in which case, it must at least be acknowledged and addressed, or condemned if it is so pervasive as to be the point of the art. This would be the difference between Lovecraft’s xenophobic racism (which is certainly evident in the stories, but they can be read with no knowledge of the subtext and still enjoyed) and, say, Birth of a Nation, which is a brilliantly executed piece of propaganda for evil, and should be viewed in the same way we view the Nazi propaganda films–worthy of study, but never emulation or admiration.
If the artist is still alive, it becomes more problematic. I have a policy of not enriching assholes. I am a film fan, but I will not watch Woody Allen flicks. If the artist is no longer receiving royalties, I might be willing to make an exception then, but I will not sing praises of the work.
@epitome of incomprehensibility:
In some parts (and for some people) in USA, using public transportation means that you’ve done the horrifying sin of BEING POOR and NOT OWNING A CAR, THE TOOL OF FREEDOM, SO FREE IT CRIES CRYING BALD EAGLES NON-STOP ON ITS WAKE AS IT BURNS MONEY AND BLOOD-OIL TO RUN.
@ Ellesar
You put that very well. I would agree that the context and audience reception is a vital consideration.
I doubt if anyone has been inspired to murder by Delilah or used it as a subsequent justification or rallying cry, whereas there is a huge problem with homophobia in Jamaican culture.
As an aside I once took a friend to see “Romper Stomper”. The next day she was happily singing one of the songs. I pointed out that that perhaps wasn’t the best idea; especially for a proverbial ‘nice Jewish girl’.
“But it’s so catchy!”
“Well so is the Horst Wessel song and that didn’t end well either”
I did a double-take when I saw that this piece was by Nico Hines. “Nico? But she’s dead!”, I thought.
There’s always something pleasantly surprising – and far more desirable – when you hear of an actor or musician who is, overall, a decent person.
It doesn’t help many creative individuals – particularly those with a lot of exposure – tend to be incredibly egotistical. They can also be incredibly thin-skinned, which I find to be a weird attribute for anyone in a creative field, but I notice it everywhere from stand-up comedians to comicbook artists. It’s rather amazing at how even the most mild constructive criticism will have them and their sycophants faulting you for “personally attacking” them. The worst part is that this kind of behavior is awarded because many of those aforementioned sycophants regularly equate egotism to intellect and talent.
I think it’s part of a bigger social trend that comes from over-glorifying individuality and instilling the “everyone is special” notion in so many kids. It’s lead to this form of sophistry wherein you get people who excuse their actions by arguing “intention” (as if other people are mind-readers) or the expectation of validation just for having and stating an opinion. No matter how inane or goddamn horrific it might be, there’re people who will become petulant when it is treated as anything other than completely legitimate.
The internet’s obviously exacerbated this, as evidenced by how common conspiracy theorist-style logic has become when discussing issues. It’s why anecdotes are readily accepted by certain online communities over certain topics – yet will nonetheless constantly demand “evidence” from others when they disagree with them (even when they are given such). There’s this line between fact and opinion that gets blurred over the internet and, unfortunately, there is an increasing amount of people who regularly conflate the two.
Really makes it hard to have conversation on the internet, where the people you’re arguing with sound as if they come from a incredibly different alternate timeline or a different planet. It can become so incomprehensible that it becomes frustrating.