Month: March 2018

Music throwback: Strawman – Lou Reed

March 2, 2018 would have been Lou Reed’s 76th birthday

I was playing a compilation album from Sire Records’ Just Say Yes series and rediscovered Strawman by Lou Reed. The disc has a live version of a song that first appeared on his well-received 1989 album New York.

I was pained to note that the lyrics are as topical today as when they were first penned:

Does anyone need yet another politician
caught with his pants down and money sticking in his hole

Here’s a a rare Q&A from 1989, Lou Reed: A New York State of Mind.

Does anyone need another racist preacher
spittin’ in the wind can only do you harm

I don’t have easy access to my vinyl so I’m not positive I own the album. But there is another song from New York I must have on another compilation.

“‘Last Great American Whale’ is a ballad about a mythical creature who came to the rescue of an Indian chief, who was jailed for killing a racist youth. The whale saves the chief and stops the racism… But the great animal was then killed by a NRA member, who had been aiming for the chief. This is taken as a symbol of Americans lack of concern for the environment.”

From the Wikipedia: “Lewis Allan Reed… was an American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He was the lead guitarist, singer and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground, with a solo career that spanned five decades. The Velvet Underground achieved little commercial success during their existence, but are now recognized as one of the most influential bands in rock, underground, and alternative music.”

The Velvet Underground was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and Lou Reed was, as a solo artist, in 2015.

Unfortunately, he didn’t live to see the latter honor. On “October 27, 2013, he died from liver disease at his home in East Hampton, New York, at the age of 71.” March 2, 2018 would have been his 76th birthday.

He was survived by his third wife, multimedia and performance artist Laurie Anderson, with whom “he had collaborated on a number of recordings.” They were married on April 12, 2008, though they had been romantically involved since the late 1990s.

Listen to:

Strawman

Last Great American Whale

The New York album, in turn

May we e’er our praises sing, with loyal hearts and true

The one time in my whole life I intentionally entered a fight was in fifth grade.

“…IN A TROUBLED NEIGHBORHOOD” -Binghamton Press May 25, 1967

By fifth grade at Daniel Dickinson, my classmates and I had a routine after school. We walked Bill home on Mygatt Street. This was less than two blocks away, and right across the street from the store, Miss Ellis’, where I usually bought red licorice “shoelaces” from her big glass case. Then to Lois’ at Mygatt and Meadow, and to Karen’s at Mygatt and Spring Forest Avenue, across the street from the cemetery, where some of my ancestors are buried.

If I were going to my grandma’s, I’d split off and head to 13 Maple. But if I were heading home, I’d walk Carol to her house on Cypress Street, then go over to Ray’s house a few doors down, which was behind another house, cut through his yard, go via the Canny’s trucking lot back to Spring Forest, down Oak Street, and back to 5 Gaines.

We didn’t always all go together, but frequently enough for Christine, my sister’s best friend in those days, to acknowledge quite recently how much she admired our group. Christine, BTW, lived right next to my grandmother, so we got to swim in their family above-ground pool in the summer. There’s where I first saw color TV, in 1962 or 1963 – Disney and/or the western Bonanza.

Starting with 4th grade, we had gym with Mr. Lewis. EVERY semester, we had to do marching drills – “column left – MARCH” – before we could do anything fun, like volleyball. I always felt he was training us to be fodder for some war.

The first teacher we had for a full year since kindergarten was Miss Marie Oberlik, who lived on Meadow Street, less than three short blocks away. She taught us how to count to 19 in Russian, which I still remember. It was in her class where we learned about JFK’s assassination.

Neville Smith was the principal of the school, a well-dessed man, as I recall, and Pat Gritman was the secretary. For a number of years, starting when i was in fourth or fifth grade, both Leslie and I went to her home on Front Street for Friday night Bible club.

The girls in sister Leslie’s 4th-grade class. She’s to the left, partially behind Christine

My father, Les Green, would come and sing folk music at my class every semester from about 3rd to 6th grade. And he did the same for Leslie. He’d always sing Goodnight, Irene, which made some of the kids think I had a crush on the girl in the class by that name.

He DIDN’T do this for baby sister Marcia, and I remember that I went to her kindergarten class to sing. By that time, her teacher was Mrs. Burroughs.

The one time in my whole life I intentionally entered a fight was in fifth grade, when this kid Robert was pushing around David D, the one who was about a head shorter than most of the other kids. The fracas didn’t last long, though, because Mr. Frenchko, the assistant principal, and later my English teacher, yelled out of a school window and we scattered.

The drag about Robert was that he was the ONLY other black kid in my class. He was so academically challenged that he eventually failed three semesters in two or three years and ended up in the class of sister Leslie. (There’s a Stupid Crime Story I could tell you, if you want.)

Even then, I occasionally wondered if our school was getting all the resources it should. Specifically, the music book we used in Mrs. Joseph’s class, which I took for six or seven years, was ancient even then. I remember a time in fifth grade when she allowed us to pick songs, and someone called out the number for Old Black Joe, which we had never sung. We didn’t sing it that day either, as she said, plainly, “Let’s pick something else.” And a good thing too, because I was ready to walk out of the classroom.

More soon.

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