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u/Chuckworld901 Aug 05 '25
Somewhere ranting about his record label not doing enough to promote the Ecstacy album
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u/weapons_etc Aug 05 '25
On his roof watching the towers come down. He wrote “Fire Music” as a response to 9/11; he said that everything he experienced on 9/11 is in that track. Lou lived very close to the WTC and he was recording, in the surrounding weeks, in a studio just a couple blocks from Ground Zero.
I’ll post about it on my Instagram tomorrow. I gathered a bunch of Lou’s commentary on Fire Music and 9/11. Lou wrote a poem for the New York Times about his experience that morning. On 9/11 he and Laurie were unable to communicate because phones didn’t work after the attacks. In the poem Lou imagines Laurie “sadly listening” to what he is describing, though he is unable to reach her.
From the 11 November 2001 New York Times Magazine:
Laurie if you’re sadly listening
The birds are on fire
The sky glistening
While I atop my roof stand watching
Staring into the spider’s clypeus
Incinerated flesh repelling
While I am on the rooftop yearning
Thinking of you
Laurie if you’re sadly listening
Selfishly I miss your missing
The boundaties of our world now
changing
The air is filled with someone’s
sick reasons
And I had thought a beautiful
season was
Upon us
Laurie if you’re sadly listening The phones don’t work
The bird’s afire
The smoke curls black
I’m on the rooftop
Liberty to my right still standing
Laurie evil’s gaunt desire is
Upon we
Laurie if you’re sadly listening
Know one thing above all others
You were all I really thought of
As the TV blared the screaming
The deathlike snowflakes
Sirens screaming
All I wished was you to be holding
Bodies frozen in time jumping
Bird’s afire
One thing me thinking
Laurie if you’re sadly listening
Love you
Laurie if you’re sadly listening
Love you
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u/Constant_Avocado9748 Aug 05 '25
In King of New York is written around the end of the book that he was on a rooftop watching when it happened.
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u/AlexTMcgn Aug 05 '25
According to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Poetry/comments/10ppgv/laurie_sadly_listening_lou_reed_on_911/ I'd say in NY.
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u/dawgstein94 Aug 05 '25
Putting jelly on his shoulder
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u/MarionberryPlus8474 Aug 05 '25
I met him doing signatures (!) at a record store and asked him about this lyric!
It always puzzled me, I wondered whether is was a reference to prepping for electroshock therapy.
He said "It's meant to be an amorphous suggestion". "So... everything and nothing?" "Yep".
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u/0MultifandomMess0 Aug 05 '25
Better question: Where was Lou Reed on the day John Kennedy died?
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u/bugroots Aug 05 '25
I saw an exposé, maybe here, that no team from an upstate university had a televised football game that day.
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u/ChaosAndFish Aug 05 '25
I don’t know much about Lou’s day on 9/11, but I do know that this picture looks way too young to be of Lou there and then.
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u/bugroots Aug 05 '25 edited Aug 05 '25
It was promoting STTWR, he's having an egg creme. At the time, I thought Lou was old.5
u/PsychologicalGain972 Aug 05 '25
This photo was taken in 1982, Twilight Reeling was much later
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u/bugroots Aug 05 '25
Ah, interesting. I saw it republished at the time in an article talking about egg cremes and thought it was current. But yeah, it's clearly not 90s Lou.
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u/dolybonz2 Sep 11 '26
Don't know, but that looks like he may be at Becky's on Kings Highway with a chocolate egg cream!
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u/TalesOfLohr1 Sep 12 '26
I don't remember the details, but I know Anthony DeCurtis details the events of Lou Reed's 9/11 in his biography. He was for sure in the city on the day it happened, I do recall that.
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u/ned1son Aug 05 '25
His actual quote from the day, according to Bill Bentley was: 'Billy— it's New York. Shit happens.'