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
@Maggie,
I did a double take on the “Nico” too. Especially since Lou Reed treated Nico pretty poorly when they were in the Velvet Underground together.
Also, regarding trains: NYC was broke in the 1970s, so the Subway in particular wasn’t in the greatest of shape. It took DC building Metrorail around the same time for people to really start respecting public transport again. I’m not sure how well the commuter trains like the LIRR were doing back then, though.
@epitome of incomprehensibility
Long Island is a suburb of Manhattan, so it’s seen as a less hip or edgy place to live than Manhattan. There’s nothing mockable about trains–they get people from the dreaded ‘burbs to the place that has it goin’ on.
So the guy in the song is fat and brainless and also (along with his wife) deeply uncool.
Seconded; I’m pretty sure that’s what Reed meant when he was poking at a Long Island guy for ‘taking the train’ (I really doubt he was trying to malign those who rely on public transportation in general – for all of Reed’s faults, he didn’t seem like the type to make fun of people for not having money; also, in NYC everyone uses public transportation anyway). Basically, he was saying the guy’s a square. See also: the NYC-centric epithet “bridge and tunnel,” which has been around at least since the late 70s and even has its own WikiPedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_and_tunnel
@ freemage –
I tend to take the same view. I can acknowledge the anti-Semitism in Shakespeare or Marlowe, while also recognizing that it went with the times and the writing was brilliant. buying their writing after they’re dead isn’t going to alter anything.
But there’s no way in hell I’d go to Mike Tyson’s Broadway show (and it still blows me away that he gets the celebrity treatment after getting out of prison for rape). I have no desire to enrich Roman Polansky, and if I was doing a research project on musical misogyny, I’d scout around for used albums so Chris Brown and Robin Thicke didn’t profit.
I realize it’s possible to take this to extremes, and probably every artist has done something problematic. But there are lines I’m not gonna cross, and one of them is lining the pockets of known rapists like Tyson and Polansky.
Lou Reed’s shitty side was well known even at the height of his success, so none of this comes as any shock to me. It’s also why I was never a fan, although I recognize the talent behind his best songs. I just can’t relate to the violence and drug abuse and other seamy things he sang about. So I don’t feel any great let-down knowing this. I don’t worship celebs as saints, anyhow. I know all too well that the creative and the unpleasant are two aspects of the same whole. So I don’t believe in separating the artist from the art, so much as in the need to integrate the two, to recognize how they interrelate. Because, you know, they do.
My thoughts on separating the artist and the art goes to three things:
– It’s impossible to do it.
– Why are you so invested in being able to celebrate the art?
– What are you promoting, now, by doing so?
Maybe I am a curmudgeon, but there is no art on earth that I value so highly that I simply must enjoy it regardless of the consequences. Isn’t that true for everyone? If a baby died every time a Shakespeare play was performed, wouldn’t people stop performing and attending them? There are some consequences that simply aren’t worth it.
With this acknowledged, we have to decide where we’re going to draw the line on consequences we accept and ones we don’t. This is a decision, and there are consequences. There are negative consequences when someone holds up Polanski as a great filmmaker. There is a message being sent by that. The message is that it’s okay to celebrate a rapist as long as that rapist can make you feel good in some way. Is that message one that we want to accept? Is the enjoyment of the art worth the consequences of doing so?
I find that this falls roughly along the lines of privilege. People who are privileged to not have rape a part of their everyday life are more likely to say that we can separate Roman Polanski from the art value of his films. The message that it’s okay to celebrate rapists is not one that these people feel affects them, so they don’t have to see that that’s the message being sent.
I’ve seen the argument: “I’m not celebrating Roman Polanski, just the art in his films.” This is the bullshit. You can’t say that Roman Polanski’s films are great without saying something complementary about Roman Polanski as a person. The separation of art from artist is a completely artificial one, and it serves the interests of those who want to feel good from art and who value that feeling above the message that it’s okay to celebrate rapists. Art flows from artists. It doesn’t arise ex nihilo.
It’s interesting to take into account Roald Dahl’s anti semitism when reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Then it’s clearly an allegory for how Roald wanted WW2 to pan out. (Blue eyed blond kid defeats the Weimar Republic, the UK, and the US and inherits the world)
This is so upsetting. Lou Reed was (I emphasize was) one of my heroes. At one time I was known for my love of all things Lou Reed and Velvet Underground, I knew he could be a total dick but I wasn’t aware that he was so abusive and racist and monstrous.
I have to wonder if there was also just some severe self loathing in Lou Reed, deflect insecurity in himself by being an utter asshole to everyone else.
It’s a bit easier to separate artist from work when the artist is dead so they aren’t benefiting from it anymore.
At least that’s what I tell myself while I enjoy the works of the super-racist H.P. Lovecraft.
“You can’t say that Roman Polanski’s films are great without saying something complementary about Roman Polanski as a person.”
Yes, but that complementary thing is about his skills at directing a film. That’s not a skill that’s got any casual link to whether he’s a good person or whether he rapes children. It would be handier for us if quality and lack of brutality was linked, then we wouldn’t have a problem. Chinatown would be a bad film, Lou Reed and Jimmy Page and Gary Glitter and Rolf Harris would be hacks with no impact, Asimov would be irrelevant, the DC Silver Age wouldn’t have existed, and so on – nobody would have to feel uncomfortable that they once liked something a bastard made and we wouldn’t have to acknowledge a monster’s work as key works of art & fiction.
Unfortunately, we’re screwed.
Ah, speaking of rapists whom some people are willing to grant a free pass, sleazeball sex offender Julian Assange is no longer to be staked out.
All but one of the charges has passed the Statute of Limitations anyway now. When the last one is time barred expect him to suddenly realise that the threat of extradition to the US isn’t as serious as he first imagined.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/12/julian-assange-police-removed-from-outside-ecuadorian-embassy
Seconding what Charles RB said. If you say that Polanski’s films are great, then of course you’re saying something complementary about him. I thought we were pretty clear on the fact that having a bad quality doesn’t make all your qualities bad. Pretty sure there’s a name for that fallacy somewhere.
And it’s not necessarily that you’re invested in thinking his movies are good. Maybe it’s just your opinion that they are. People have opinions.
@Ellesar and Alan
I agree with what Ellesar said, and I wouldn’t personally compare Alan’s example to what I was talking about. I think they’re two different topics.
Did you … read my post?
I thought I was clear, too:
What about this needs to be elaborated? I sincerely doubt that you, dhag, would feel the same way about homophobic Jamaican music if you were, yourself, a gay Jamaican who faced assault and possible murder.
@PoM
I agree with most of what you said in your comment, but I’m having trouble with this part. The question was whether it’s possible to separate the work from the artist, and I think you basically skip over that part through a bait/switch.
What you’re saying is that rapists can’t be good film makers (can they be good violin players?). I think that message is actually harmful, because then it logically follows that if someone has made good movies in the past, then they can’t be a rapist.
I’m gonna assume I’ve misunderstood you somehow, because I don’t think you would be making that argument since it’s obviously flawed.
Ehh… Normally I’d agree, I’m very much on the side of “It’s fine to enjoy problematic stuff or stuff by problematic people – let’s be honest, that’s 99% of everything – as long as you acknowledge what’s problematic, condemn the worst of it and generally don’t act like a #Gater shithead,” but rapists are where I draw the line, and Polanski in particular is a unique case where he’s actually more famous for being a rapist than he is for making movies.
@PoM
No, I fully agree with you here. I think it’s very likely that it would bother me a lot more if that were the case. It does bother me to some extent now, and it would obviously bother me a lot more if my situation were different.
But that’s not what I was talking about at all. I take your point, but with all respect, it’s a different discussion.
I’m debating whether I should try to restate my original concern, or if I should just leave it alone and keep it to myself. I’ll probably just let it go for now. Forget I said anything.
@SFHC
Sure. For the record, I don’t give a fuck about Polanski. I’ve never seen any of his films, and in fact I barely watch any movies ever. I barely know who the guy is. I wouldn’t have brought up him in particular in this discussion.
@ SFHC
I’ve posted this before but not sure if you saw it. Anyway if you want to have a fume about Polanski check this out. Warning, your head may explode.
http://www.5rb.com/case/polanski-v-conde-nast-publications-ltd-hl/
Of course a rapist can be a good filmmaker. I’m not saying it’s impossible.
What I’m saying is that nobody makes this attempt to separate, let’s say, the racism of the makers of Birth of a Nation from the film itself. Nobody comes out of Birth of a Nation and says, “Wow, that scene where the black guy was threatening to rape the white woman while the Klan was riding to the rescue was super-powerful and really spoke to me.” People analyze the film for its technical merit and its tremendous influence on later filmmaking.
Nobody except a film critic or student comes out of a Roman Polanski film and says, “Wow, the camera angles were brilliant, and the choice of backgrounds were truly inspired.”
Coming in and saying, “I can enjoy this as art without endorsing Roman Polanski as a person,” elides the reason why they want to split this hair: they enjoy the films. They enjoy the films, and they think their ability to enjoy the films is more important than the message it sends that it’s fine to be a rapist as long as you’re also a great artist.
Don’t try to claim to me that this message is not a thing, because people do say it. People make excuses all the fucking time for Roman Polanski, like Whoopi Goldburg saying that what he didn’t wasn’t “rape-rape.” People start petitions to have his conviction vacated on the grounds that he’s a great filmmaker and his films are so valuable that the fact he’s a rapist isn’t important.
This message is real, and the consequences of the message are real. You need to decide for yourself if your enjoyment of his art is worth the real harm this message does, the real reinforcement it makes to rape culture. You need to decide for yourself if you want to privilege your private feelings of happiness over someone else’s rape.
Miss Diketon:
Are you the one person who liked Metal Machine Music?