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(from 1978's Take No Prisoners)
Sorry Micheal, We had some kind of a nut here the other night night.
There's no place to put the fucking glass so I
I put it on the floor because I didn't want to get the fucking Yamaha
Piano dirty cause it costs so fucking much.
There's a lunatic out there he comes after the show,
says I want to talk to that fucking Reed man
why did he throw a cup at his roadie.
Five cops and he hits a cop. Can you imagine? What an asshole!
Hey and he had his brother here right and he punches a cop.
I want to talk to Lou about the ...answer to life and why your booing me...
so next time you're wondering.
And I don't live that far from here...like I get out of the limo and
there'll be the dragon with the cape and all your sins and then some and
I'll say, Yeah, but I'm not Catholic, Jack. The umbrella man is on
Riker's Island and he's studying to be a dentist. You remember him? With
the cape?
(audience member yells out "LOU!" and he answers)
What?
Surprised ya, huh. What do you think this is? Question and Answer?
It's not my fault man.
Twenty thousand years of rock man come on...I don't have anything to say
I just want it quiet, man, I've been here for a week.
You think that's an accomplishment? I think it's a ...something you're
sentenced to!
And if you don't get that, you get the pladium with dulcimer...
two hours for fourty thousand animals throwing beer cans at you...
oh but that's rock n' roll
bullshit. Not behind my back it ain't.
We know the rhythm, come on, eight measures of them
Don't you show any passion
You show an emotion I fire you!
I'm not sure that we did this song all week,
like, it's not that I don't want to play your favourites,
it's just, there are so many favourites to choose from (so)
The thing is: I, I was so sick of that song,
I don't get sick of my own songs, I like my own songs,...,
so we haven't done it in a while but, only doing tonight
and not because I like it, because now I'm not bored with it
Everybody gets bored with somebody sometimes, except me, I'm lonely
Me and my several selves discuss it at night:
Lou number one, Lou, Lou number five
Hello, is that you again reformer? Mea .Culpa... huh
Holly came from Miami F.L.A. Oh man, sorry.
I have no attitude without a cigarette
I 'd rather have cancer than be a fag
That wasn't an anti-gay remark
coming from me, that's a compliment
It's Like going to bed with a brontosaurus, man, it's out of style
What is in style? Nothing is in style, man
Have you gotten into nothing? Why not: 'cause there's nothing
Saturday night man, what do you want?
Ahaa, Watch me turn into Lou Reed before your very eyes, ah?
I do Lou Reed better than anybody, I thought I get in on it
Enough attitude to kill every person in Jersey
Ask them in Passaic
Holly came from Miami F.L.A.
hitch-hiked, hitch-hiked, oohh baby, across the U.S.A.
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
shaved his legs and he was a she
and it makes sense, you better take a walk on the wild side
Nothing to do baby what do you think I'm for on the wild side
Would you like to know how this song got written?
I know you've been dying to ask us
That sound like Hollywood to you Mark?, that's an inside joke ....
Believe it or not: the first time I quit
Rock 'n roll because of too many lawsuits
It was like I could not afford my lawyers
I still can't, but now I got the government as partners
Fantastic, I get the government, like a week, you know,
in Puerto Rico, in a nice hotel,
It's like what are you complaining about assholes
I just play guitar
Hi Bruce
Springsteen is allright by the way
He gets my seal of approval, I think he's groovy
You notice the way the critics turned on him,
like after they were on him, right?
When he needed them, they weren't there at any time
Critics: what is Robert Christgau do in bed?
You know, is he a toe fucker?
Man, anal retentive, "a consumer's guide to rock?!?", what a moron
a consumer's guide to rock, man, I object to the fucking liner notes
He's starts studying rock 'n roll, I can't believe .....Baroche rock. man
A study by me a Robert Christgau, And John Rockwell, man, wauw
You know how heavy it is to get reviewed by Rockwell
and he says you're intelligent, fuck you
I don't need you to tell me that I am good
Mister Reed,
you know, you say ooh man I'm just some kind of a maniac
Like in the New York Times said Mister Reed, fuck you
Your doorman wouldn't kiss my ass now I don't give a jack
He, right, he studies at Harvard though, monologue
But dig this: Opera. He's a fucking opera guy!
And that is the critic for the New York Times,
that makes and breaks the best rock bands,
that are very heavy and intelligence
Notice that there are no coloured rock groups?
certainly not in the New York Times with John Rockwell,
he wouldn't go there, man, he comes to CBG's with an armed guard,
don't touch me man, and he's a big dude, someony should say:
John, don't be afraid, Christgau is like an anal retentive
Nice little box and a B plus
CanYou image working for a fucking year,
and you get a B plus from an asshole in the village voice?
And you don't got to take that shit,
you don't have to talk to the fucking journalists
And they get it for free and the best seats
In case you're interesting:
and there's no way we can do anything about it
The club owners want the good review
So you get the asshole, right up front, but bored he's gone
When is this shit over, Marty, you got some coke?
Oh boy, anyway,
I know you're not interested in my problems, neither am I
Candy came from out on Massapequa, Long island
This is true, this is true, believe me, oh wow was that true
In the backroom she's everybody's darling,
went to a bar called The Hayloft in Baldwin .... ... ....
And when she was giving the greatest head,
even when she gives you the greatest head,
there's was nothing that Candy ever said but,
Hey babe, why don't you, come on take a walk on the wild side
I really miss Candy, and I even didn't know her that well
I'm such a scam artist
Leukemia from a silicone tit, and I'm supposed to feel sorry?
Now don't fucking do that, don't you,
You know you have health education,
don't put plastic in your fucking tit
You got no heart: man, I don't have enough heart for 14.000 assholes
But I've got enough for you, oh really?
You're almost as boring as you look, thanks
You look like a democrat, wanna go to bed?
Hey Little Joe
Little Joe was an idiot, I don't know if any of you know that,
but, here's this guy, like it,
and you talk with him for two minutes,
you hear: he has an IQ of 12
So like he,
he's the only guy I know who went to Italy to be a moviestar,
and it is not happening,
I mean, everybody is ready to go to bed with him,
make him a star
He can't, he can't barely tie his shoes and dress,
and I know Einstein can't tie his shoe laces,
but it's not like that,
not even close man, you know he just sits and wants a name
I say: Joe you're getting older, he says: I know
I'll make a Warhol film, but you can't do that anymore, man,
Andy has taken himself away from us,
and he's right, now I know why he did it
So, Drella, if you're there: I'm very glad that you're around
But me and, how, how Catherine you're there,
he went to see Mamie Van Doren
What did she do, sag? Late show?
Mamie Von Doren, she has Gore Vidal as a what? Him and Mailer.
And the Mailer, yeah,
I met Mailer at a party and he tries to punch you in the stomach
To see how tough you are ...... he's pathetic, you know
Come on man, say what?
You gotta be kiddin', somebody step on it man, go write a bible
Anyway, interesting people like the Sugar Plum Fairy, hit the street
Sugar Plum Fairy,
now the person who loves the Sugar Plum Fairy
is the terrible right?
A real terror,
she's fired from the New Yorker
for correcting Dorothy Parkers prose,
can you imagine
For those of you who still read: what a snotty remark, I know
Anyway,
she makes her living writing things for the Encyclopedia Brittanica
Five cents a word, like last time I saw her she, she,
Michael, she, she was doing the flower section in Africa
Delilah's Nabula, yeah,
she said: what is the word that will make this thing interesting
We call her Tiny Malice, Dorothy Dean,
oh man, two drinks and she lays this dude out
I throw a dish at her,
like filled with cigarettes on Thanksgiving
Just 'cause she was getting ready to say, mmmm
She wouldn't come to see me if I was dying
Jackie, Jackie Curtis, this is revalations
Remember that play, like, you know that play that was so ridiculous?
Aahh, started that whole thing now you got that Rocky Horror shit
and all that bullshit
Oohh man, don't you know, and I guess you don't, it's not your fault
It's the journalists, those fucking journalists,
why don't we shoot those journalists
You don't need those assholes, why do you let them go in here free
Why don't you bitch or something, go to another club, yeah
I don't believe you take this shit
Anyway, I will run for office next week,
and I wouldn't vote for me on a prayer
I'm not trustworthy, Jacky, and I know, she's just speeding away
Though like me, hey I'm Jimmy D for a day, what, what
But you know that she had to crash
and some valium had helped that bash
What do I use now: Dilaudid..., right, ten grains for a headache
Eight, eight dollars in Ohio, right, here it is like fifty-five
Unless you go to Chinatown, they bite your nose off
Hey, you need somethinh for pain?
And then the coloured girls, they walk over, guess what they said,
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Wait baby,
I was gone tell you how I came to write a song
Called Walk on the Wild Side
I did not think of it myself
Right, that's how I got on this one
I had worked out,
just when I made an album called Loaded For Loaded with hits,
yeah, that's right,
because I saw it coming,
and said oh oh, get lost, so I walked, right,
because we were gonna be very succesfull,
and there could be money there and it's tyranic
So I became a typist for my old man,
forty dollars a week, he says stupid
I said yeah, but I understood I was smart:
I don't want the company man, you know
I have had two jobs, one's with a guy in Jones Beach,
you know the stick with the pin
Lasted one day, a guy threw a orange peel down here in the trash ..
I say you gotta be kiddin' man, I got a stick with a pin in it
So he put me in the pool area, the guy who walks around
when you put your stuff, like in the fucking chair
And they say:
if you leave, and don't take the stuff with you, we throw it in the water
That was an afternoon,
I said: what do you say, can't you read the sign? I was one of them
Wauw, that was, I'm a shock,
I was appalled, I was taken the back, and then he saw
So, the guys who did the Three Penny Opera, this is all true
Call me up, of all things they say:
we think you are a very literary rock 'n roll person,
and after Ray Davies
we think that you are the person that could take Nelson Algren's
book Walk On The Wild Side
and do like a musical thing for off-Broadway
I said, I said, you gotta be kiddin',
it's about cripples in the ghetto,
man, what are you, out of your mind?
They said: oh but,you know,
very serious intense hippies like, 40-ish grey haired, Italian, ,like,
Park Avenue apartment
And I said: oh what, I'm not for,
I'm a fucking typist at this point,
you gotta understand man
People saying: oh Lou you're so nice,
I got forty dollars a week, you gotta be kiddin'
These assholes wanna treat me for a book that's about cripples?
I'm the best qualified person to write a book
about cripples in music?
Kill yourself man, that's better than be a garage mechanic, I think
As long as I keep thinking that, you know, and why, what's the truth
I keep saying the Genie will appear and say: "hey, schmuck!
It was really groovy all the time
being that garage mechanic out in Islip", and I'll say "Oh, wow"
Why didn't you tap my on the shoulder earlier,
because you wouldn't have listened,
fair enough
So they give, they,
they say go buy a paperback version, they didn't even give me a version
I said is it abridged?, oh the movie with Jane Fonda,
said then: now you got it
I like to look at Jane Fonda, don't wanna hear her
Now I don't even want ot look at her, you know
I don't like sensitive lesbian pictures
Look, I, I don't relate, you know, backwards I don't relate,
and facing front is hopeless
So I read this fucking book, and I,
they said:
will you make a X where you think the song should go, haha
The cripple goes to the bathroom, oh, oh yeah, cripple cripple
I, I got jammed for a few times, I had nothing to say to them
So then it became a challenge, so I figured,
why don't I write the theme song for Walk On The Wild Side,
I call it Walk On The Wild Side, that's smart
So I had a great title with nothing to write about,
this stupid fucking book, man
Everybody says the guy is brilliant, I said: he's from Chicago,
Saul Bellow, oh
So anyway, then they got Mahogony, that, that play that flopped
Diana Ross getting,
Diana Ross by the way is great, as a person,
she hasn't made a good record in a time
Love Hangover is not
She says hello to me, that's more than you do
So anyway, I had a great title,
and nothing else, and then they fired me
I mean they did it really gently,
they looked down easily and they said:
Lou, man, we've got a chance to produce Mahogony off Broadway
I said: ow wauw, am I crushed,
ha, break a leg, I read that in the book, go get them man, look
advance the theatre, haha,
Bruce, you got to believe me man, these, these people exist
Till the play bombed because assholes like Robert Christgau said it was
terrible,
and in this case it was
And I wouldn't go on in the first place,
but there I was writing the song for these assholes
Anyway, so then, I had a great title and, I figured
I save this title for the day I decide to assault the world
You yawn .. .... so I did some.
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