Lou Reed

From the cover of the album Street Hassle (1976). One of the most famous and iconic photographic portraits of the late poet, musician and singer. Lou Reed’s ambiguity, his dark attitudes and bright qualities as a poet and artist, are deeply inspirational. As from his face and body, he was no androgynous at all. A divide from his friends and colleagues David Bowie and Mick Jagger. This pic of him reminds Ferlinghetti’s City Lights, so back to Charlie Chaplin’s: Lou Reed himself composed a song with the same title for Charlie Chaplin. And the stars of New York, down from the skies, deep in the City, that Andy Warhol talked and painted. A bright star is the reflection of the flashbulb on the sunglass. A propos , sunglasses at night. A night which is blue, not black Street Hassle as a song is a tragic story of the death of a transvestite. Transvestites are the protagonists of Lou Reed’s most famous Walk on the Wild Side, they were habitual at Warhol’s Factory. At the end of this song, Lou Reed imitates closely Bruce Springsteen’s voice (the two of them were recording at the same studio, simultaneously). Bruce Springsteen, sooo macho.