Stellar work, Jami! If you haven't yet, you need to start thinking about compiling your work into a book that focuses on....well, all the subjects you write about here!
I was on "Walk on the Wild Side" upon release, only because I knew all the references.....thanks to my constant cover-to-cover pouring through Hit Parader, CREEM, PRM....well, all of 'em, really! And, thanks to Bowie's early songs, and a subscription to Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine, I came to know about all of them! Even (dare I say, especially) Joe.
BTW, I searched your "Songs That Saved" site, and noticed you've written nothing about Wayne/Jayne County (unless I missed it). May I kindly make a request, please?😁Also (and I know Substack's bandwidth is limited), but as much Joe as can fit on a page, pleeeeeze?😱
We need to get coffee sometime Brad because I'd love to hear about your adventures. And thank you for the kind words about a book. It's actually part of the plan. The work right now is to amass enough stories as the publication is only a few months old.
Also, I did have to hold myself back on posting even more photos of Joe Dallasandro. That dude's attributes have, let's say inspired a lot of people!
I love requests. Jayne County is absolutely on the list!
Aug 4, 2023·edited Aug 4, 2023Liked by Songs That Saved Your Life
I love this post. Also I love this song, it’s in my all time top ten.
I have to say I did not fully agree with where you couched Bowie in the pantheon of gay icons in your post about Ziggy, I felt there were gaping holes and misinterpretations that misrepresented who Bowie actually was. However Ezra Furman’s quote in this post about Lou Reed, about Bowie’s adoption as a gay icon being mostly about showmanship and notoriety to Bowie, sums up so succinctly what it would probably take me pages of rambling to try to say.
The other things that I’d say about this song, about Wild Side, is wow! Bowie’s production, it’s perfect!!! The musicians, are unbelievably good!!! The baseline!!! The quality of the recording, stunning!!! And that’s without mentioning the simple brilliance of the chord structure and way Reed captures these five vignettes so completely in four short lines a piece... he takes you there with him. Poetic genius.
BTW (and I’m not sure this is a comment too far, not sure I can fully explain this, but anyway here goes)…
I have often played this song live. And one thing I’ve toyed with — especially at events where I know several of the audience well, as friends, and these people are also well known by the audience in general — is I’ve replaced Lou Reed’s muses’ names with my friends’ names. It’s fun. It put’s these people in the spotlight for a moment. It’s harmless, people laugh, and smile. Mostly it satisfies an almost inherent English trait to tease and poke fun at people you like and appreciate.
On one occasion — and lord only knows what I was thinking — I did this whilst I was in Buryatia in Russia, near Ulan-Ude. I was a guest there, on a kind of cultural exchange. My hosts had just taken me out for food, for momos (local steamed dumplings). Buryatian people are very similar looking to Mongolian or Chinese people, characteristically they are big people, strong, and their culture is quite macho, including a lot of beer-fuelled fist-fights in bars, usually started by being accused of cheating in some local gambling-type-game, or about making a move a on some guy's girlfriend. LGB etc was simply not an acceptable thing then, it was no way part of their mainstream culture (this was fifteen years ago or so, not sure how it is now). For sure, obviously, it must have existed, however all in secret, in private, a total-sub-culture.
Anyway, after being treated to momos, one of my hosts, a huge Buryatian guy called Andre, a local builder and business man, well known and respected in the local community, asked me (through an interpreter) to play some songs right there in the restaurant. They obviously had been planning this because they produced a beaten up 6 string classical style guitar. I looked at it, strummed it once, thought to myself ‘oh shit, this guitar is almost unplayable’, looked at him, and the rest of the people there in the restaurant (possibly twenty-five or so), and some how, without fully thinking it through launched into Walk On The Wild Side (which is only three-chords at the neck, so just about playable on even the worst guitar) with a plan to tease/respectfully spotlight a few people by including them in the vignettes. I also thought, probably everybody in the world, even in Russia, knows this song…
To start with it seemed to be going ok. Some of the audience spoke English, and they seemed to know the song (or at least recognised the ‘Doo do doos’) and they’d latched onto the idea I was including the names of people there, and there was laughter, and smiles, so I thought it was going great.
Anyway Joe’s verse was dedicated to Andre, and New York city was replaced with Ulan-Ude (‘Ulan-Ude is the place where…’ it even rhymes). I looked straight at Andre as I was singing it, and I could see a translator frantically translating it into his ear in realtime, and…
It didn’t go down well. The phrase ‘like a lead balloon’ comes to mind. Andre looked angry and insulted (and causing such was the furthest away from any intention I had). He immediately paid the restaurant bill, excused himself politely, and left in a hurry, but with as much dignity as he could muster.
I learned a lot that day, about cultural and sense of humour differences, and things being lost/anhilated in translation.
Great read, Jami! Until today, I had never put 2 and 2 together on who was on those Smiths covers. And while a lot of ink has been spilled on both Reed & Bowie, I think Furman's compare/contrast of the two that you've cited here is the best distillation.
Thanks Kevin, much appreciated. I could do a whole post on just Smiths album covers as Morrissey was a master at using queer-coded imagery and language in his art. I agree about Furman's take on Bowie and Reed. There are arguments to be made that they both used queerness as a selling point until it no longer served them. Artists don't get away with that as much now as they used to (progress?)
I was surprised. I went into it thinking, "of course the Jill Sobule song is more interesting" and was convinced that the Jill Sobule album is great (and I would also pick "Karen By Night" as the highlight) but that the Kate Perry song is worth taking seriously from a queer perspective -- which again, was not my impression going in.
I always wondered what the "Philadelphia Freedom" lyrics meant because I love the "emotion" of the song, as BJK put it. Knowing makes me love the song even more. Thanks for this post!
An outstanding column, but I would mention one slight correction: Lou Reed only plays on the first four albums released under the Velvet Underground name. All of the original band members had departed by the time of 1973's SQUEEZE, which was virtually a solo record written and performed by Doug Yule, who joined the band after John Cale's departure.
Stellar work, Jami! If you haven't yet, you need to start thinking about compiling your work into a book that focuses on....well, all the subjects you write about here!
I was on "Walk on the Wild Side" upon release, only because I knew all the references.....thanks to my constant cover-to-cover pouring through Hit Parader, CREEM, PRM....well, all of 'em, really! And, thanks to Bowie's early songs, and a subscription to Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine, I came to know about all of them! Even (dare I say, especially) Joe.
BTW, I searched your "Songs That Saved" site, and noticed you've written nothing about Wayne/Jayne County (unless I missed it). May I kindly make a request, please?😁Also (and I know Substack's bandwidth is limited), but as much Joe as can fit on a page, pleeeeeze?😱
We need to get coffee sometime Brad because I'd love to hear about your adventures. And thank you for the kind words about a book. It's actually part of the plan. The work right now is to amass enough stories as the publication is only a few months old.
Also, I did have to hold myself back on posting even more photos of Joe Dallasandro. That dude's attributes have, let's say inspired a lot of people!
I love requests. Jayne County is absolutely on the list!
Whenever you're in Austin, TX, give a holla, yo!☕
I love this post. Also I love this song, it’s in my all time top ten.
I have to say I did not fully agree with where you couched Bowie in the pantheon of gay icons in your post about Ziggy, I felt there were gaping holes and misinterpretations that misrepresented who Bowie actually was. However Ezra Furman’s quote in this post about Lou Reed, about Bowie’s adoption as a gay icon being mostly about showmanship and notoriety to Bowie, sums up so succinctly what it would probably take me pages of rambling to try to say.
The other things that I’d say about this song, about Wild Side, is wow! Bowie’s production, it’s perfect!!! The musicians, are unbelievably good!!! The baseline!!! The quality of the recording, stunning!!! And that’s without mentioning the simple brilliance of the chord structure and way Reed captures these five vignettes so completely in four short lines a piece... he takes you there with him. Poetic genius.
BTW (and I’m not sure this is a comment too far, not sure I can fully explain this, but anyway here goes)…
I have often played this song live. And one thing I’ve toyed with — especially at events where I know several of the audience well, as friends, and these people are also well known by the audience in general — is I’ve replaced Lou Reed’s muses’ names with my friends’ names. It’s fun. It put’s these people in the spotlight for a moment. It’s harmless, people laugh, and smile. Mostly it satisfies an almost inherent English trait to tease and poke fun at people you like and appreciate.
On one occasion — and lord only knows what I was thinking — I did this whilst I was in Buryatia in Russia, near Ulan-Ude. I was a guest there, on a kind of cultural exchange. My hosts had just taken me out for food, for momos (local steamed dumplings). Buryatian people are very similar looking to Mongolian or Chinese people, characteristically they are big people, strong, and their culture is quite macho, including a lot of beer-fuelled fist-fights in bars, usually started by being accused of cheating in some local gambling-type-game, or about making a move a on some guy's girlfriend. LGB etc was simply not an acceptable thing then, it was no way part of their mainstream culture (this was fifteen years ago or so, not sure how it is now). For sure, obviously, it must have existed, however all in secret, in private, a total-sub-culture.
Anyway, after being treated to momos, one of my hosts, a huge Buryatian guy called Andre, a local builder and business man, well known and respected in the local community, asked me (through an interpreter) to play some songs right there in the restaurant. They obviously had been planning this because they produced a beaten up 6 string classical style guitar. I looked at it, strummed it once, thought to myself ‘oh shit, this guitar is almost unplayable’, looked at him, and the rest of the people there in the restaurant (possibly twenty-five or so), and some how, without fully thinking it through launched into Walk On The Wild Side (which is only three-chords at the neck, so just about playable on even the worst guitar) with a plan to tease/respectfully spotlight a few people by including them in the vignettes. I also thought, probably everybody in the world, even in Russia, knows this song…
To start with it seemed to be going ok. Some of the audience spoke English, and they seemed to know the song (or at least recognised the ‘Doo do doos’) and they’d latched onto the idea I was including the names of people there, and there was laughter, and smiles, so I thought it was going great.
Anyway Joe’s verse was dedicated to Andre, and New York city was replaced with Ulan-Ude (‘Ulan-Ude is the place where…’ it even rhymes). I looked straight at Andre as I was singing it, and I could see a translator frantically translating it into his ear in realtime, and…
It didn’t go down well. The phrase ‘like a lead balloon’ comes to mind. Andre looked angry and insulted (and causing such was the furthest away from any intention I had). He immediately paid the restaurant bill, excused himself politely, and left in a hurry, but with as much dignity as he could muster.
I learned a lot that day, about cultural and sense of humour differences, and things being lost/anhilated in translation.
Great read, Jami! Until today, I had never put 2 and 2 together on who was on those Smiths covers. And while a lot of ink has been spilled on both Reed & Bowie, I think Furman's compare/contrast of the two that you've cited here is the best distillation.
Thanks Kevin, much appreciated. I could do a whole post on just Smiths album covers as Morrissey was a master at using queer-coded imagery and language in his art. I agree about Furman's take on Bowie and Reed. There are arguments to be made that they both used queerness as a selling point until it no longer served them. Artists don't get away with that as much now as they used to (progress?)
They certainly don't- at least not mainstream ones. Is there a contemporary equivalent to either Reed or Bowie?
The Song vs Song episode about "I Kissed a Girl" convinced me to take the Katy Perry song more seriously than I had(which was not at all): https://player.fm/series/song-vs-song/ep-122-i-kissed-a-girl-vs-i-kissed-a-girl
Ooh this looks interesting. I'll have to listen to this and see if the same happens for me!
I was surprised. I went into it thinking, "of course the Jill Sobule song is more interesting" and was convinced that the Jill Sobule album is great (and I would also pick "Karen By Night" as the highlight) but that the Kate Perry song is worth taking seriously from a queer perspective -- which again, was not my impression going in.
I re-listened to the episode, and would definitely recommend it. If you do listen to it, I'll be curious what you think.
I always wondered what the "Philadelphia Freedom" lyrics meant because I love the "emotion" of the song, as BJK put it. Knowing makes me love the song even more. Thanks for this post!
An outstanding column, but I would mention one slight correction: Lou Reed only plays on the first four albums released under the Velvet Underground name. All of the original band members had departed by the time of 1973's SQUEEZE, which was virtually a solo record written and performed by Doug Yule, who joined the band after John Cale's departure.
Mind blown. I didn't know most of this even though this song certainly played on my turntable in my teens. This is such a fun education!