In which our indulged anti-hero, the villain of so many pieces, hears the tolling of time and seeks comfort in the warmth of jazzy arrangements and fizzing brass, and sends apologetic notes to his loved ones. It’s a series of essays on self-pity and feeling bad, but like Iggy Pop’s ‘The Idiot’ and Grace Jones ‘Warm Leatherette’, it carries an air of post-indulgence introspection, self-justification and weary humour (not to mention a mixture of traditional sounds/songforms and more unearthly ones), meaning you don’t know where you stand. The interest in sincerity and the means of expressing it (what we recognise as ‘soulful’ sounds) bring to mind the ‘plastic soul’ of Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’ period, and the ensuing series of records, his best, which dealt with questions of confusion and self-expression.
But Reed is a far more salty customer than Bowie; there is more cut to his jib, more spite to his moves. His superiority complex can never be suppressed. Here he swings between his familiar warm buzzy vocal and a maggoty Ziggy Stardust yelp, which sounds like a pained and angry Gollum on ‘With You’ which might be answering Bowie’s query in ‘Be My Wife’ with a doubtful yes, but I’ll make your life hell, and you mine.
Like a jaded explorer settling into the familiar American musics and finding them an awkward fit, his voice is always a counter to the loose murky lush of the instrumentation. Opener ‘Stupid Man’ is shot full of the kind of self-hatred only the truly narcissistic can muster. ‘Disco Mystic’ strikes a perfect tempo for a brooding, hilarious sonsense nong, crawling in on it’s belly and repeating the mantra of it’s title as if daring us to either find meaning here, or an answer to refute it. ‘Families’ swoons and staggers beautifully, and Reed’s meandering vocal nearly destroys it wonderfully. It’s a seasick letter home, simultaneously a comic parody of teenage angst (‘And families that live out in the suburbs, often make each other cry’) and an apparently tearful apology to those at home whose patience has worn. It’s brilliant tension lies in not knowing whether to take an apparently sorry Reed at face value or look for fingers crossed behind his back. And as a study of confused motives, as a missive from a wronged and often wrong man, it packs more punch than preachy anger.
‘City Lights’ a beautiful meditation on the treatment of Charlie Chaplin by the United States is a release from concerns of Reed’s ego, and as such is possibly sweetest moment here, all anger restrained and tired.
Possibly the stand-out track here, ‘I Want To Boogie With You’ is a sumptuous stand-up declaration of Reed’s intent to, ‘go down town for a little romance’ with the subject of his affections. A song that is all the greater for Reed’s inability to match the honesty of the music with voice and lyrics. He’s not a Wonder or a Gaye, and his pride is stung:
‘Well I know your little baby sister
She thinks that Im a flop
But I guess that you know that its true
I spent more time at the bottom than the top
Tell your little sister
I know she wants to give me a whirl
But I dont have the time, baby
To wait till shes grown up and shes a woman, not a girl’
Reed practically invented the commentary-style lyric in pop; his detached musings on, say, ‘Heroin’ or were a true big bang. What makes ‘The Bells’ one of his best records, apart from the gorgeously full sound, is the confusion of the personas he adopts, the masks of sincerity played with here; questionable motives of a born liar trying to tell it like it is. Or not.
Labels: music review Lou Reed
