It's Only Rock & Roll, what Lou Reed meant to me.

I didn't want to write a blog entry that would turn into a biography and I don't per se, want to overly eulogize one of my music heros. I think most of my fellow fans or anyone familiar with contemporary American Music of the last 50 or 60 years know about his life already and are mourning in multiple ways. I'm going to sit down and listen to the whole of my VU catalog. It's certainly my favorite (maybe) of his pop songwriting.

That's right, to be very honest with you, with all this talk in The NY Times or Rolling Stone articles about his "dark vision" kind of leaves me a little cold. Yes, there were some very dark themes-whole albums of dark themes. But I want to remind people of what a great, great pop songwriter Lou Reed was. For a man who was partially rapping and narrating over tunes, he could, at times write achingly beautiful melodies about being a young person in love; those pre-Beatles understanding of Rock And Roll. Not that The Beatles didn't write about puppy love or hand holding; but ultimately they are British and as much as they wanted to be American and distill American music you have to live where Lou Reed lived in order to pick up those great Eastern U.S. styles in order to do what Lou Reed did. Philly Soul, Doo-wop, Harlem Radio DJ voices, Alan Fried, American Bandstand, New York folk scene and Atlantic Records all floated through Lou Reed's ear holes I am sure. At least I like to think so.

What I wanted to write about is how much Lou Reed influenced my life and my love of popular and contemporary music. Especially my great love for a well-crafted pop song and music that helped me get through it all while I was growing up (and way into middle age). Lou Reed helped me become a man in a lot of ways. He let me know it was okay to be sensitive, but don't go indulging in that shit all the time. Life's hard and it's okay to be angry. It's okay to medicate yourself. He was a music Jesus that who impaled himself on the 'angry young man' demeanor and made himself the personal sacrifice on the altar of all our demons so we wouldn't have to. His dark messages never, ever glorify the act of the sin, but merely a narrative that takes you down a path and says "you decide".

I was late to The Velvet Underground. I was probably 21 or 22 when I discovered them through the rise of the college music underground in the mid-to-late '80s. In fact the first VU tunes I heard were covers of Pale Blue Eyes and Femme Fatale on REM's wonderful outtakes album Dead Letter Office. My future wife was forcing The Velvet Underground and Nico down my throat...and I fucking loved it. It was dark, but it could be happy and poignant too.  The album that really blew me away after that was Loaded. It was chocked full of standard Rock And Roll and today I still can't figure out why it didn't sell a million records when it came out. Rock And Roll, Sweet Jane, Lonesome Cowboy Bill, were these great tunes with great melodies written primarily by someone weened on '50s Rock And Roll. In any event Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground teed me up for punk and post-punk. I learned by listening to Lou Reed that punk was not the slam-dancing movement of screaming over one chord, it was in fact the continuation of great melody tunes. The New York punk movement of the '70s would most certainly not exist without Lou Reed. Think of all the great pop tunes and melodies written by the likes of Blondie or The Talking Heads. Bands I am sure knew the secret that King Louie imparted to us all...that's it's only rock-n-roll. It's all about heartbreak and soaring love. It's about first kisses and hand holding. It's about first loves and having fun with your friends. It's about first breakups and losing friends. It's about growing up in public (to use a later album title). It's about rebellion. Punk Rock is just another euphemism for Real Rock And Roll And Rebellion. Lou Reed taught me how to listen to Rock And Roll, critically. He taught me what was the good from the crap, by showing me that he too could make some crap...and he did on many occasion. But that is the human side of the urban folk rock he performed and invented. He taught me it was even okay to fail and you are sometimes anyway, so get used to it.

The eponymously titled album The Velvet Underground was a beautifully understated masterpiece. With such heartbreakers as Pale Blue Eyes or Candy Says or low key rockers like What Goes On and That's The Story of My Life shows me over and over again what a great songwriter Reed was. And he's the leader of a band than no one would seriously revisit for 20 years after they were made. Again, these were the musical feet that brought me the spirit of Rock And Roll for the new generation, my own generation of Generation X.

Incidentally, as an aside, I was amused by and like every one of the Lou Reed tunes that are titled "[insert girl's name here] Says." When I was young and kept "poem" journals I too would borrow this tack of taking girlfriend's names or whatever female I was obsessed with at the time and titling it "[insert girl's name here] Says". It was all very dramatic and Lou again helped me work through my love issues.

There are countless albums of his that I adore; tunes that I love, songs that helped me make it through. Up until a couple of months ago Lou was helping get over some grief. I lost my cat and best buddy Frank in June 2013. The day that we put him down (and I had no idea at the beginning of the day that we'd have to do it) we had had such a great day together. I knew Frank was very sick, but we got up together. He was sleeping on me which he hadn't done for awhile. He was hungry for his favorite treats, he was getting all around the house to position himself for his favorite form of affection of head kisses, he had good meals where he ate his favorite food and drank lots of water. He got to get in some lap cuddling and being held. At the end of the day though he lost the use of his hind legs through a blood clot that caused him to have a saddle thrombosis due to his lung cancer. All I could think of the next day after I put him down was Lou Reed's poignant song Perfect Day. "Such a perfect day, I'm glad I got to spend it with you." Listening to that song and Satellite of Love got me through a rough time and healed me up enough to do my job and get around to do my day-to-day activities.

So I think many of us are indebted to Lou. I think he did that for a lot of people. I know when I heard the radio program Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview with Lou's long time publicist William Bennett, I was moved by the description that "Billy B." gave about Lou where I paraphrase "Lou really believed in doing good and right things and it pained him that he would sometimes not do them." Who doesn't relate to that? I think Lou would be happy to know that he actually helped people, took care of them, and inspired countless people who were not simply artists but also the every day regular folks who just dug great Rock And Roll.