The Eyes of New York City

Rare picture. Lou Reed (middle) John Cale (left) and Andy Warhol (right) all smiling, lightness. No harm. Lou Reed, who just died, was not famous for being “light”. You looked at Lou and saw all the heaviness, the disturbance, the danger and the grandezza of an underground rocker life. In my teenage bedroom, deep down in the french-german province, I looked at pictures of Lou, the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol. I locked the door and drifted away into this unknown world, the world of New York City, the world of artists, musicians, the factory, people that lived a life I was dreaming of. Although I did not have a clue, what it meant to run around on heroin in NYC and sleep on the floor of Andy’s factory. Lou Reed always stood out, he was good looking (even when he was high, which I would not recognize at 14) He sang in a way that you could feel New York, even if you have never been there or if you never go there. Listening to Lou, you could feel your own urge to break out from whatever, you started to trust your instinct, that it would be a good idea to LEAVE a small town. I was a little scared of all the leather he wore, but later on, when I went to New York  by myself, I realized that Lou’s leather pants did not mean so much and that Lou was about something else. It was Lou’s look in his eyes, these New York City eyes, that never wanted you to take yourself too seriously. Eyes, that did not talk about self destruction, like Edie Sedgwicks eyes. Lou Reed WAS an artist, but never behaved like one. Fantastic, the way it should be. But the era of Lou and New York is over. We think of New York because of its past. Lou and his city have left at the same time. Or he just took his city with him. I love Lou Reed.