"PERFECT DAY" LOU REED (1972)

I generally gravitate to the music first before the lyrics. But as a writer, I still marvel at well-spun verses and choruses. This month, I’m joining the music Twitter community in #31DaySongLyricChallenge

Day 18

Is it about romance or addiction? It really doesn’t matter. No matter how you interpret it, “Perfect Day” is hauntingly, achingly beautiful, yet it possesses this unassuming nature. This is where Lou Reed has thrived in his songwriting the most – both in his solo work and with The Velvet Underground. He takes these seemingly everyday moments and gives them a weight that seems unbearable at times. While I love the orchestral instrumentation of the song, it’s the lyrics and Reed’s delivery that are the most powerful elements in “Perfect Day”.

“Just a perfect day. You made me forget myself. I thought I was someone else, someone good.”

"DIRTY BLVD" LOU REED (1989)

Inspired by Albumism, I’m doing my own version of Flying Solo with individual tracks. Band breakups and hiatuses are never fun, but these solo jams were defining moments in my life’s soundtrack.

An interesting historical factoid: When “Dirty Blvd” was released as a single, Billboard started its Modern Rock chart and the song soared to #1. The song’s popularity on this particular chart is very telling of Lou Reed’s influence on the music world. Here we had a classic rocker, who not only was invited to the modern rock revolution, he helped lead it.

“Dirty Blvd” is alternative to the core. Like many songs from the Lou Reed and Velvet Underground canons, it’s a three-chord rock song. But the structural simplicity is countered by those unexpected Lou Reed moments, like the chorus outbursts and tempo pauses going into the verses.

“And back at the Wilshire, Pedro sits there dreaming. He's found a book on magic in a garbage can. He looks at the pictures and stares at the cracked ceiling. "At the count of 3" he says, ‘I hope I can disappear’.”

"SATELLITE OF LOVE" LOU REED (1972)

Inspired by Albumism, I’m doing my own version of Flying Solo with individual tracks. Band breakups and hiatuses are never fun, but these solo jams were defining moments in my life’s soundtrack.

The best thing about Transformer and “Satellite of Love” is that they’re strikingly similar to the Velvet Underground aesthetic. In fact, the track was previously recorded as a Velvet Underground demo for Loaded. And then it was rerecorded for Transformer while the band was technically still together at the time.

What “Satellite” did, as many Lou Reed songs do, was take a simple rock song with a relatively simple song construction and add elements that gave it an air of unfamiliarity and uniqueness. That was Reed’s magical formula. And the potion for this one was an unusual story, a bridge that seems to come out of nowhere and the bubbly falsetto backing vocal.

“I've been told that you've been bold with Harry, Mark and John. Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday through Thursday with Harry, Mark and John.”

"PERFECT DAY" LOU REED (1972)

Not a single guitar chord to be heard. There’s just something very unrock and roll about “Perfect Day”. But there is MIchael Ronson’s piano interlude. A stunning string arrangement. A tuba. And a song that was nothing like the Velvet Underground. It was Lou Reed’s poem about his girl. It wasn’t about heroin. It was about a perfect day with a girl and sangria in the park. What Reed wrote and sang is exactly what he meant.

“Just a perfect day. You made me forget myself. I thought I was someone else, someone good.”