Best song on Lou Reed's Sally Can't Dance

We were discussing this record in the Richard Hell thread; it has never been polled while most of Lou's other 70s work has been evaluated.

I love every song on this. Everything that should weaken this record somehow makes it stronger - offhand songwriting, flat and compressed production from Steve Katz, everyone else in the studio trying too hard while Lou barely makes it up to the microphone. There's no better parody of 70s rock.

The only track from this that made it to Lou's box set was Kill Your Sons, a VU leftover. Although it might be a little too sincere to represent the record as a whole, I'm voting for the divorce ballad Ennui.

I don't like "Animal Language" or "NY Stars" but I like everything else on this album and it's quite difficult to choose a favourite!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Ngt7VY-Iw

It worked, the album was one of his biggest hits.

... much to Lou's amusement/disgust.

His next album was Metal Machine Music - and ILX polled that before this?!
METAL MACHINE MUSIC POLL

did the VU ever actually play "Kill Your Sons"?

the "single version" of SCD is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H50Odt241hA

My first exposure to Lou Reed was some budget comp that i pulled from a dollar bin when i was 12. First side started with Satellite of Love and Walk on the Wild Side and Perfect Day, all of which I loved, but when it got to Sally Cant Dance at the end of the side I still remember thinking "Wow, all that, plus this guy can really ROCK, too!" lol

The original "Kill Your Sons" has completely different lyrics and is actually anti-Vietnam War protest song, if you can believe such a thing from Lou Reed.

His next album was Metal Machine Music - and ILX polled that before this?!

MMM was polled three times!

*raises hand* it me

regarding Sally's rent-controlled apartment:

$80 in 1974 is worth $422.68 today

still a steal!

yeah the original kill your sons is a wild artifact - lou in earnest protest singer mode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEWXl64Hfbw

Who prefers this to Coney Island Baby?

tough call but I might? it just has more swagger

"Shes My Best Friend" is my favorite of all solo lou things so i'd have to vote coney, but realizing now that a mixtape combining the best of both would really be 10/10

The Coney Island Baby LP is very good, and obviously Lou is more "present" there, but I find the sound a little wispy and "oooh baby" is filler even by Lou Reed standards.

No way, "Oooh Baby" is great!

Shake your bones now, Mama!

I thought it was "buns"?

Buns would be even funnier tbf.

lol

yeah oooh baby is filler for sure, but the filler on coney island goes down easier for me, just bc i like that band better. nothing is rougher than animal behavior though, down there with the worst lyrics of lou's career imho

Good album

xp the 'Rock and Roll Heart' album has worse lyrics generally (especially 'Banging On My Drum' and 'Follow The Leader').

Particularly since 'Follow The Leader' dates back to 1969 and the R&RH album version doesn't sound like Lou bothered to write any more lyrics in the interveening seven years.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted "Billy" in the end, despite Lou sounding like he's barely conscious and attempting to rhyme 'foliage' with 'college'.

Diana Clapton's Lou Reed biography contains a few interview snippets from Sally Can't Dance producer (and former Blood, Sweat and Tears guitarist) Steve Katz:

"As an artist, Lou was not totally...there. Most of the time he was in the bathroom shooting up. One time at my home in Westchester he just disappeared, and I was getting fairly fed up, so by 'accident' I opened up the bathroom door. He looked at me looking at the needle and said, startled, 'Oh - now you know". I was ready to burst out laughing. NOW I know?"

Katz describes a show at the Felt Forum in Madison Square Gardens:

"Mick Jagger was in the audience and he really did want to meet Lou. So he went backstage to his dressing room and said politely, 'Have you ever played here before?' Answered Lou, 'How the fuck should I know?'"

I was surprised to find out that Mick Jagger was a Velvets fan back in the day, so much that "Stray Cat Blues" was actually inspired by "Heroin." (from The Rolling Stones All The Songs)

Also, it's bewildering how Lou's producers and session men throughout the '70s were so ill-suited for his music given their past work (Blood, Sweat and Tears, Yes, etc.) but I guess it makes sense - outside of Bowie, his choices of successful name musicians heavily influenced by the Velvets were probably going to be few until the end of the decade.

Lou's manager at the time, Dennis Katz, was Steve Katz's brother. I wouldn't say Bob Ezrin was an inappropriate producer, though.

I think part of the issue was that Lou was looking for a certain slick and professional backup, he wasn't going to start recording with the remains of the MC5 or the Asheton brothers.

On this topic, I noted in the RIP thread that Lou's longtime keyboard player, Michael Fonfara, died last month. He had been in Rhinoceros, another highly unhip 60s combo.

outside of Bowie, his choices of successful name musicians heavily influenced by the Velvets were probably going to be few until the end of the decade

...and those few almost all worked with John Cale during that time.

he wasn't going to start recording with the remains of the MC5 or the Asheton brothers

Lou wanted to sell records, there's no way he was going to work with those guys when they had little commercial success in their lifetimes. If it weren't for their own personal problems/baggage, I think Cale would've liked to have worked with them. Cale made it clear in recent interviews that he wanted to go in an "abrasive" (his word) and uncompromising direction with the Velvets while Lou wanted to do "pretty" (again Cale's word) and more accessible material.

Lou's manager at the time, Dennis Katz, was Steve Katz's brother.

If you want to know what Lou thought of Dennis Katz listen to the song "Dirt".

LOL awesome. Maybe I'll give Street Hassle another try. It always struck me as very uneven (at best half of a great album), but quite a few people argue it's a masterpiece and I'd like to hear it the way they do.

"Dirt" is the only song I like on Street Hassle. The title track is OK but feels self-important. The rest is a car crash.

"Leave Me Alone" is one of the most awesomely stupid songs ever.

Haven’t listened to this album that much- in pre-streaming days I only had an eight track, but always found it surprisingly enjoyable despite its throwaway reputation. Guess I will try to listen one more time before the poll closes.

SCD >>>>> Street Hassle

Lou Reed lives for the throwaway: "Temptation Inside Your Heart," "Hangin' Round," "I Love You, Suzanne," "Egg Cream," "Hookywooky," etc.

Agree with you second post, mostly, but not the first.

Voted "Billy" in the end, despite Lou sounding like he's barely conscious and attempting to rhyme 'foliage' with 'college'.

Still don’t know what I will vote for.

The hardest thing about evaluating Lou Reed's work is deciding when a throwaway should, indeed, be thrown away.

Great throwaway: Animal Language
Terrible throwaway: Sex With Your Parents (Motherfucker) Part II

lol I love that terrible throwaway

This just popped up in one of my algorithms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4LcFHMjH9k

This is how Lou confounds critical standards!

Lou Reed lives for the throwaway: "Temptation Inside Your Heart," "Hangin' Round," "I Love You, Suzanne," "Egg Cream," "Hookywooky," etc.
I love half of those. "I Love You Suzanne" was the first time I ever saw Lou Reed perform live (albeit on TV, on an old SNL rerun). "Egg Cream" was possibly the first track I ever heard from a Lou Reed album.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Surprisingly one-sided. There's like 4 other songs I'd put ahead of "Kill Your Sons".

Ah I missed this one. Would have voted "Ennui"

I'm pleased we more than doubled the number of votes in the Rock and Roll Heart poll.

I guessed wrong sorry.

I have a fondness for this album, but, like, Lou is really only barely involved here, he is too high to know what's going on, which is why "Ride Sally Ride" is the best song here -- it is an audible reflection of where he's at

Ennui a close 2nd for me, what a vast yawning void that song is

I guessed wrong sorry.

When I made this poll, I didn't realize that a 2cd live album had been released last year chronicling the Sally Can't Dance tour: When Your Heart is Made Out of Ice. The first three songs were recorded at the Felt Forum show mentioned above, with the remainder coming from a show in Dayton. Lou must have consulted this poll when creating the set list, because he sings every song that got a vote except for "Ennui".
Information is scarce about this release from "Easy Action Recordings". The shows were apparently recorded for radio broadcast and have probably been bootlegged before. The sound is sometimes in mono, then in stereo, and the phasing on the cymbals makes it sound like somebody's filling a sink onstage during the rockers.
Still, the performances make this a very listenable record. With only one guitar, the keyboards take a bigger role than they did on Rock N Roll Animal, and there's almost something... light-hearted about the show. The band provides enthusiastic backing vocals, and they even do a doo wop take off at the end of the set. The version of "Heroin" in the set has been cut, though; it jumps "away from the big city... be the death of me." The version of the song from this show available on YouTube seems to paper over this gap with a recording from another source.
There's another bit on this recording that even makes me think of Lulu. The band starts playing the riff of "Sally Can't Dance", and either intentionally or by accident, Lou starts singing "Waiting for the Man" over it. Lou sang over his own guitar for most of his career, but this shows the different dynamic when he does free-floating vocalization over a backing group. It's like the music and lyrics are independent entities that could be matched up any which way, singing one over the other.