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Excerpted from LOU REED: The King of New York.
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Copyright 2023 by Will Hermes.
Then his health took a downturn.
(They barked for five minutes, she recalled.
That was one of the happiest moments of my life.)
When asked about plans for his next album, he hedged.
In fact, he would.
But at the moment, Reed seemed tremendously frail.
Most performers would have withdrawn from public view.
But Reed pushed on.
In June he managed to play Glastonbury with Gorillaz, on the festivals iconic main stage.
Later, he would come up with that really astonishing album idea.
It was born of his third Robert Wilson project, which reimagined the Lulu plays of Frank Wedekind.
Like Edgar Allan Poe, Wedekind was a writer with whom Reed had a spiritual kinship.
The son of a gynecologist, Benjamin Franklin Wedekind was born in Germany in 1864.
Reed laid into the writing.
The same month, Reed began recording an album with Metallica in Marin County, California.
The collaboration was highly unlikely.
Then Reed suddenly changed his mind and decided that instead, he wanted to record material fromLuluwith Metallica.
The idea was not well received, even by his own management.
To him it was like disrespecting hisLulusongs.
After a couple of uncomfortable days, Sarig gave in and endorsed Reeds idea.
The band had reservations, but similarly went along with it.
The men let Reed take the creative lead, since the songs and lyrics were his.
But they expected to have input as well, and there remained doubts about the material.
And even by Reeds standards, theLululyrics were often shocking, with Reeds gruff, croaking delivery conjuringLulus voice.
I would cut my legs and tits off / When I think of Boris Karloff, the record began.
Images of fisting and coprophilia flash through Mistress Dread.
But the finale, Junior Dad, was something else.
The verses moved through a Freudian minefield of parental failure and childhoodfears.
Listening to the playback, the lyrics cut Reeds bandmates to the core.
James came into the kitchen in the same condition.
He was sobbing too.
Reed shed his share of tears, too.
Any doubts about the project were pushed aside.
Old-guard critics were mostly measured, but on the internet, the new guard let loose.
Fan reactions online ranged from enthusiastic to baffled to nasty to hilarious; parody videos abounded.
At least one clip featured a cat having a panic attack triggered by the music.
That cunt from Velvet Underground?
That ancient sack of shit wouldnt know metal if it bit his shriveled cock off!
Reed and Willner had a hearty laugh over that one.
But in general, the response toLuluwasnt amusing.
Press events were hair-trigger.
In public, the musicians gushed over the project and one another.
They are my spirit brothers, Reed told another journalist, with Hetfield and Ulrich beside him.
Still, thered be no collaborative tour, and no U.S. production of WilsonsLulu.
And disconnected from Wilsons stagecraft, the songs were strange, often unpleasant and incoherent things.
Except, however, for Junior Dad.
Shape-shifting like Sister Ray over its 19 minutes, the finished recording was powerfully emotive.
Reed devoted much of his final two years to writing.
He published a preface to a new edition of Delmore SchwartzsIn Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories.
Eric Bogosian was committed to writing the book, and Bill T. Jones was going to direct it.
We were putting the whole team together when he passed.
It would have been great.
Very perverse, Reed concluded.
Reed was in rough shape, but the shows were among the most powerful hed ever played.
Kevin Hearn was making the set list a greatest hits of sorts when he got a call from Reed.
Kevin, he said, Ive got bad news.
Reed was dying, and his last hope was a very risky liver transplant.
In the coming weeks, the two spoke frequently.
In one conversation, Reed described an extravagant new speaker system hed just bought.
Reeds final public musical performance was in Paris, at the Salle Pleyel, a classical-music concert hall.
In May, Reed flew to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, chosen for its reputation with organ transplants.
Its medical tourism, Anderson, the Midwesterner, conceded wryly.
You send out two planes one for the donor, one for the recipient at the same time.
You bring the donor in live, you take him off life support …
I was completely awestruck.
I find certain things about technology truly, deeply inspiring.
According to Reeds transplant surgeon, the liver was less than perfect.
But Reed understood his situation and didnt hesitate.
Its good enough for me, he said.
Family and friends came to visit.
His sister talked about seeing the Velvet Underground in Cleveland when she was in college.
Reed was soon home and, though weak, returned to work.
There was optimism, even opportunities to laugh.
The satirical news publication the Onion ran an item titled New Liver Complains of Difficulty Working with Lou Reed.
He just has this way of making you feel completely inadequate.)
Reed savored and scrutinized much of his lifes work.
He swooned over Bowies backing vocals on Satellite of Love.
He pumped his fist toBerlins Lady Day.
He time-traveled through the binaural space of The Bells.
He took so much joy from rediscovering these records, Wilner says.
And being able to sit there in the room with him while he was doing it?
I felt like the luckiest person in the world.
Discovering theyd just finished Reeds back-catalogue remastering, Lyonne suggested they listen to some songs.
As a rule, Reed never played his own recordings on the show.
But they made an exception.
Willner recalls Reed saying, I cant believe were getting to do this while Im alive.
Ad people play fair with you.
Deadpanning, he claimed he never went to school, and that he slept with his amp.
Asked about his earliest sound memories, Reed said his was the same as everyones: his mothers heartbeat.
And thats why we love PPWHOH, PPWHOH, PPWHOH, he said, beatboxing the primal rhythm.
Nico appears in several, as do Bowie and Warhol.
Rocks photos of Reed with Rachel Humphreys didnt make the cut.
Nearly a decade earlier, Reed wrote a short essay for a small-circulation art magazine.
Julian Schnabel recalled rewatching theBerlinfilm with Reed, and his friend wondering at what impact hed made.
He always felt, in a way, unappreciated, Schnabel said.
He never felt like people really got it.
Reeds sister recalls himsaying point-blank: I dont want to be erased.
When Reeds body began rejecting the liver, he was flown back to Cleveland for follow-up care.
But little could be done.
Kevin Hearn flew out to help with what, at this point, was hospice care.
It became very personal, Hearn says.
He recalls Reed speaking to a doctor, parsing the difference between the words faith and hope.
One day, mirroring his New York routine, Reed had Hearn take him up to the hospital roof.
Reed lay down on the tar paper in his gown and looked up at the sky.
Kevin, arent you coming down here with me?
Hearn lay beside Reed.
He recalls Reed yellow from jaundice, face thin, body wasting.
Reed began to weep and thanked Hearn for coming.
You mean so much to me, Reed told him.
He kissed his friend.
The next day, Reed flew back home to die.
In the end, not even Lou Reed wanted to die in New York City.
He spent his last days with friends, listening to music and floating in the heated pool.
Willner and their friend Jenni Muldaur stayed overnight.
We didnt talk much, Willner recalled.
We just lay there with him, and he had me DJ.
I can still see the goosebumps on him.
Reed and Anderson stayed up all night that Saturday, talking and doing breathwork.
When daybreak came, he asked to be helped to the porch.
Take me into the light, Reed said his final words, spoken on a Sunday morning.
I have never seen an expression as full of wonder as Lous as he died.
His hands were doing the water-flowing 21-form of tai chi.
His eyes were wide open.
Anderson made the appropriate calls, but wanted to spend some final hours in the house with Reed.
