rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

I'LL BE YOUR BROKEN MIRROR

(Lou Reed - Berlin)

     Still having problems converting .cda to .wav.  In the meantime, as I continue to try and get Punk Rock Blues (the musical) online, I figured I'd say a few words about my choice for #1 Record of All Time. I really thought it was gonna be 'Horses', and I took the whole winnowing process probably more serious than I could have, but I'd never really came out w/a top ten before and felt it was an opportunity to really delve into what music makes me tick.

     'Berlin' is as grand an opera as any, elegant, ornate and blindingly depressing it tells the sordid tale of 2 expatriate Americans, Jim and Caroline, living on the edges of amphetamine madness in the then dividded city of Berlin. A sad tale of sad people, but told in a shockingly dispassionate style by Reed, then coming off the major success of the 'Transformer' record, and playing around with his first whiff of real 'stardom'. That he would subject this long awaited, but only recently arrived, adoring public to a work of such brutal honesty; to proffer an unvarnished look into the miserable creatures humans can be as pop music says a great deal about Lou Reed. It tells me (told me) that the boy's playing for keeps. That this record broiled in his brain and sufferred him so that, had it not been transformed into art and released, it surely would have killed the man.

     Far from the skinnybop guitars of the Velvets or the glamorous doowop symphonies of the Bowie/Ronson produced 'Transformer', 'Berlin' (produced by Bob Ezrin who would later go on to fame as the producer of 'The Wall) was bedecked in  3-D orchestral arrangements, bolstered by musicians as varied as Jack Bruce, Steve Winwood, Aynsley Dunbar and Dick Wagner. Marketed at the time as a 'movie for the ear', Berlin's sound is remarkably full throated and cinematic. The story of these 2 speed freaks, beating each other physically and spiritually until her kids are taken away and she cuts her wrists in their bed. Jim ends the record intoning on the regal 'Sad Song"

 " I'm gonna stop wasting my time.

   Somebody else would have broken both of her arms."

     Such offhanded matter of factness smacks of brutality, of course, but also of the numbness sometimes required in living through extreme circumstances. Rather than the music hall frivolity of 'Walk on the Wild Side' where Reed reduced living, breathing tragedy into a short cartoon, on 'Berlin' Reed looks the devil that we are in the eye and calmy considers the extent of damage we can both inflict and endure. No judgements made, just a peek into a real heart of darkness.

     The most fully realized work to fall under the vague rubric of rock and roll. Our 'Citizen Kane'.

      Now, how to convert those $#@$^&* files.

Posted by: timbyrnes at 17:46 | link | comments (2)

Comments:

#1  12 January 2006 - 18:34

 

"That this record broiled in his brain and sufferred him so that, had it not been transformed into art and released, it surely would have killed the man."

Hey tim: Ever read the liner notes to Between Thought & Expression? By the sounds of it, it danged near killed EZRIN (who, if I recall, also supplied his own kids for "The Kids"). :D

burninglight

#2  13 January 2006 - 17:18

 

Well, yeah, I read the liner notes! I know the history!! Whattaya think I make this stuff UP??!!

OK, usually I do, but not this time.

Yeah, Ezrin checked himself into some kinda rehab/sanitorium right, and apparently I mean right, after 'wrapping up this turkey.' Lou, of course, went on to the Rock and Roll Animal Death Race immediately after also. Now, I'm sure that the conception and recording of this record took a certain psychic toll on those involved, but I'm pretty sure the heroin didn't help.

timbyrnes

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