I am a 32 year old married man and father of one little princess - I work in Birmingham city centre ...
I am a 32 year old married man and father of one little princess - I work in Birmingham city centre and my main interests are books and music (proper music)
Member since:30.11.2004
Reviews:78
Members who trust:11
Tracklisting
1. Berlin 2. Lady Day 3. Men Of Good Fortune 4. Caroline Says I 5. How Do You Think It Feels 6. Oh, Jim 7. Caroline Says II 8. Kids, The 9. Bed, The 10. Sad Song
I wouldn't recommend this album to anyone who has just bought Transformer because they like Perfect day or Walk on the Wild Side or anyone with just a passing interest in the man. This is not an easy listen - its Lou Reeds concept album about the breakdown of a marriage between Jim & Caroline and the mental collapse that follows.
It was produced by Bob Ezrin - a legendary producer who has worked with everyone from Lou to Pink Floyd to Janes Addiction - and the album sounds like it was recorded in Reeds head.
Opening song Berlin sets the tone with its creepy opening bars and its sparse lyrics about how they met by the Berlin Wall and it was Paradise. Following song Lady Day is a little more anguished and may be a reference to Heroin in the title (also the nickname given to Billie Holiday as well known heroin addict) and starts the downfall straight away instead of dedicating the start of the album with soppy love songs to show how great this marriage was - that would be such a cliche.
Men of Good Fortune follows and here Reed suggests that those from a better background or luckier have a better chance of a better life whereas men from poor beginnings have to strive harder for happiness.
So far so grim - but then the album goes rapidly doomward with no hint of happiness or things improving - Caroline Says 1& 2 is about the abuse caroline suffers from those around her. Lyrics like "you can hit me all you want to, I dont love you anymore" and "shes not afriad to die, all of her friends call her Alaska, when she takes Speed they laugh and ask her, what is in her mind." Its from here that they the album tackles Carolines mental breakdown with How Do You Think It Feels - a song asking, from Carolines point of view, how the listener or Jim thinks it feels when "you've been up for 5 days because you're afraid of sleeping", "to always make love by proxy", "when do you think it stops" etc.
It is after Caroline Says 2 that the album becomes almost unbearable to listen to - The Kids is a song I have great difficulty listening to - it documents how Caroline is having her children taken away as "they" say she is not a good mother and then Lou goes on to detail in a matter-of-fact voice all of the things that led "them" to this conclusion. It ends with the sound of real children crying "mommy" - it is heartrending and very disturbing. I later found that the children were Bob Ezrins and he told them that their mother had died and recorded the results - which is horrible.
Following this is The Bed in which Jim looks around their former 'home' at the bed where they lay and made their children and where she eventually cut her wrists that "fateful night". Most people I think would have switched off at this point because if you listen to this album in one sitting - which I believe would have been Reeds intention - it is extremely depressing and can alter your mood.
There is a kind of light at the end of the tunnel in the final song Sad Song - it seems to hint at Caroline being in Heaven and being happy - the song features a choir and a rousing chorus. Listened to on its own it could be seen as grim but following what has gone before it is almost a party record.
I would urge anyone with an interest in Lou Reed or real music as art to give this album a listen - it is very harrowing but also a masterpiece.
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I agree: musically a masterpiece, the lyrical content distasteful. Lou Reed was in those time on low point of his life (drugs, bad behaviour, often he did not come to his concerts, divorce). And he did, what he already did with the Velvet Underground sometimes (Femme Fatale). He blamed someone else for his own stigmata and invented bad characters. As in reality he was divorced for beating etc. his wife 1973, he invented here a bad female character (and a poor husband as a victim), and let her die with suicide. Really a bad thing, this record. But musically I admit it is (because of the producer and the guest musicians excellent). By the way: Reed even had not even visited Berlin in those days. In comparition with its predecessor Transformer it has been a flop, but it sold quite well in England for instance. Good review Tomas
JuzzaNg 23.06.2005 16:00
Not really my kind of music, but great review :-) Juz x
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