LOU REED - LAST GREAT AMERICAN WHALE
They say he didn't have an enemy
His was a greatness to behold
He was the last surviving progeny
The last one on this side of the world
He measured half a mile from tip to tail
Silver and black with powerful fins
They say he could split a mountain in two
That's how we got the Grand Canyon
Some say they saw him at the Great Lakes
Some say they saw him off the coast of Florida
My mother said she saw him in Chinatown
But you can't always trust your mother
Off the Carolinas the sun shines brightly in the day
The lighthouse glows ghostly there at night
The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor's son
And he'd been on death row since 1958
The mayor's kid was a rowdy pig
Spit on Indians and lots worse
The old chief buried a hatchet in his head
Life compared to death for him seemed worse
The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing
And tried to conjure up a storm or rain
The harbor parted and the great whale sprang full up
And caused a huge tidal wave
The wave crushed the jail and freed the chief
The tribe let out a roar
The whites were drowned
The browns and reds set free
But sadly one thing more
Some local yokel member of the NRA
Kept a bazooka in his living room
And thinking he had the chief in his sights
Blew the whale's brains out with a lead harpoon
Well Americans don't care for much of anything
Land and water the least
And animal life is low on the totem pole
With human life not worth more than infected yeast
Americans don't care too much for beauty
They'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
And complain if they can't swim
They say things are done for the majority
Don't believe half of what you see
And none of what you hear
It's a lot like what my painter friend Donald said to me
"Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done"
Lewis Allan Reed nacque al Beth El Hospital di Brooklyn, New York, e crebbe a Freeport, Long Island. Appassionatosi alla musica ascoltando la radio, imparò a suonare la chitarra e sviluppò un forte interesse per il rock and roll e il rhythm and blues, e durante gli anni delle scuole superiori suonò in vari gruppi studenteschi. Reed alla scuola superiore, 1959. Nel 1956, ancora adolescente, Reed venne sottoposto ad una terapia di elettroshock che avrebbe dovuto curare la sua bisessualità recentemente manifestatasi; nel 1974 Reed scrisse la canzone Kill Your Sons circa questa esperienza che lo traumatizzò e di cui non si liberò mai. Alla fine del 1960 Reed iniziò a frequentare la Syracuse University, studiando giornalismo, regia cinematografica, e scrittura creativa. Nel 1961 egli iniziò a condurre un programma radiofonico notturno alla stazione radio WAER chiamato "Excursions On A Wobbly Rail." Il nome del programma derivava dal titolo di un brano musicale del pianista jazz Cecil Taylor. Nel corso della trasmissione, Reed trasmetteva doo wop, rhythm and blues e jazz, in particolare brani free jazz. Molte delle tecniche chitarristiche di Reed, derivarono da sassofonisti jazz come Ornette Coleman. Nel giugno 1964 Reed si laureò alla Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences. Lo scrittore e poeta Delmore Schwartz insegnava alla Syracuse University e prese in simpatia il giovane Reed, che nel 1966 gli dedicò la composizione European Son inclusa nell'album di debutto dei Velvet Underground. Reed dichiarò in seguito che l'obiettivo principale come scrittore che si era prefissato era quello di "portare la sensibilità della letteratura nella musica rock", rendendo superati gli adolescenziali testi delle canzoni di rock and roll degli anni cinquanta e primi sessanta (che il suo mentore Schwartz detestava immensamente).
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