Neither air ball nor dunk. It’s more like one of those shots that eventually goes in after bouncing around the rim for an improbably long time.
I’m just a sucker for this song so I can see the good in all of the versions that I’ve heard, even the Cowboy Junkies.
That said, I picked the original LP version in the pool and would rank the Rock and Roll Animal version second (mostly because of the profound impact that it had on me at the time).
I picked the version on Loaded because it’s the only one I can remember. An ex-girlfriend took my copy of the Loaded reissue 10 years ago and my copy of 1969: VU Live is stored away with the rest of my vinyl on another continent. 🙁 I frankly can’t remember either very well.
And I, gulp, never actually owned Rock N Roll Animal. Am I banned now or what?
butcher pete:
You get no demerits from me. I don’t consider it to be part of the canon, it just played a pivotal role in my development, or lack there of.
In fact, I haven’t listened to R&R Animal in years, and recall it being rather bombastic. But when I first heard Sweet Jane on the radio (1979) it was that version and it blew me away. I quit the crew team and started playing guitar and I’m still playing in a band all these years later.
It also marked the end of me being a mere “fan” and the beginning of me blossoming into the obsessive rock nerd that I am today.
Rock and Roll Animal is 1 of those records where the cover is sooo promising, and the content is SUCKTACULAR!
so lousy! German Prog Metal Nerds trying to play clasic Velvets and Lou Reed Material.
stinks.
Should be a lay-up because it’s such a great and simple song nobody could screw it up, right? But then the Cowboy Junkies “choked and fucked the lay-up.” So Jim Carroll’s to me is two-handed set shot from the block, off the board, on a backyard eight-foot rim: that 80s thump to it makes me think of Rick Springfield or something. Got to go with the original version, though R’n’R Animal is pretty great, too. Also have a soft spot for Two Nice Girls’ version where they mix it up with Joan Armatrading’s Affection.
I can believe that some of you don’t dig R’nR Animal, but come on – five of you prefer the reissued Loaded version of “Sweet Jane” with the out-of-context restored middle eighth?!?!
I love Rock ‘n Roll Animal, but manly man that I am, I’m sure that doesn’t surprise anyone.
Funny, I had always thought that Rock N Roll Animal was “canonical” for Reed/VU fans, if not rock fans in general.
My only definitive memory of that record is the night I stayed up all night with a friend and went out on his 5 am paper route around northern California. We were driving a Ford Pinto, and Rock N Roll Animal sounded pretty good.
This thread got me thinking about the cover of “Rock & Roll” that Mitch Ryder did on that Detroit album and I ended up listening all night.
Google is a cool thing. Turns out the guitarist Steve Hunter on that album later worked with Lou Reed on the Berlin album (produced by Erzin too) and he’s the guy you hear on Rock & Roll Animal. Small world.
I also have memories of listening to Rock & Roll Animal at a friend’s house after school back in the day. That said, I do prefer the VU’s versions of Sweet Jane on Loaded, as well as the 1969 Live version, which are both more subtle than the R ‘n R version. I think that the intro to the Loaded version is the prettiest into that I ever heard. I was also one of the five people who voted for the reissued Loaded version w/the middle eighth restored, although they should have let the original version on the reissued CD.
Thanks for coming clean, diskojoe. butcher pete, that Mitch Ryder/Detroit tie-in with R’nR Animal was a cool thing to learn about. I think someone here pointed out that version to me a couple of years ago.
Here’s a side topic:
What’s your least-favorite critically acclaimed Lou Reed album, excluding New York, which I think everyone has since come to admit was prematurely critically acclaimed:
Transformer
Rock ‘n Roll Animal
The Blue Mask
Of course, “Other” is a possible answer, but please specify. We should probably leave Berlin out of the discussion, too, because that one is as much hated as it is critically acclaimed, right?
Dude, it’s MIDDLE EIGHT! As in Eight bars of music in the middle of the song. What is this eighth business? Eighth of what?
and RNR Animal is my least favorite Lou Reed album of critical acclaim.
The Blue Mask stinks too, but at least it stinks on it’s own terms, as opposed to a bunch of good songs that were wankily ruined by a bunch of European overplayers.
I really dislike Rock’n’Roll Animal. In general, it’s not my style of music, but the thing that makes me negative about it is the distracting contrast between Reed’s distant, moribund delivery and the mock heroic style of music. I really think the versions of those great VU classics on there make the Jim Carroll Sweet Jane inspirational.
The band on R’n’R Animal makes Lou sound inept and Lou makes the band sound silly!
Way to apply the Pince Nez to Mr. Mod, shawnkilroy. Thanks. I needed that!
The hatred for Rock ‘n Roll Animal that’s being expressed is fascinating! I’m beginning to form some broad and most likely inaccurate generalizations about those of you who can’t stand that album, but I’ll hold off for a while on sharing them so that when I do so I can share my thoughts with the false bravado of having “thought about this for a long time.”
Mr. Mod, here is the deal with the middle-eight version of “Sweet Jane.” I first heard it maybe two years after I first heard the original, edited version. That did not give me enough time to build up so much affection for the edited version that I found any deviation to be offensive. I imagine many other latter-day Velvets converts feel the same way.
I barely ever listen to solo Lou Reed. I only own Transformer. I used to own Magic and Loss, but I never listened to it. As I recall, that album is totally boring and tuneless.
I have heard the RnR Animal version of “Sweet Jane,” but nothing else from that album. It’s stupid and unnecessary, but I don’t hate it, maybe because it has a camp value as a particular nadir in the saga of Lou/The Velvets. If I want to hear a ’70s, hairy-balls version of “Sweet Jane,” I’ll listen to Mott the Hoople.
I’m okay with the Cowboy Junkies version.
This site fulfills any need I have for solo Lou, in the proper contest… the way it was meant to sound!
That Live 1969 version also has the “heavenly wine and roses” bit so it wasn’t really a shock when I heard the reissued version with the middle eight.
I don’t think there’s a whole lot of difference between the Live ’69 version and the Cowboy Junkies’ arrangement, so why does the CJ version get tagged as “dirge-like”?
Oats, I think we need a glossary entry for ‘hairy-balls.’ That’s a term that could really enter the lexicon of rock discourse.
Whatever its testicular hirsuteness, I don’t like hard rock, though it’s one of those I-know-it-when-I-hear-it distastes, since I do like some music that could be considered hard rock. R&R Animal just seems like 70s AOR twiddleyness laid on top of Lou Reed’s music. The contrast with Lou’s can’t-get-it-up delivery is less interesting than it ought to be.
I don’t really like Transformer, and I’ve only recently come to appreciate the songs on Berlin. I still don’t like the sound. Bob Ezrin is bad news.
It can’t be R&R Animal for me due to sentimental reasons.
Transformer, as disappointing as it is, at least has some really good songs on it.
I haven’t heard the Blue Mask in a while but I recall hearing how it was a “return to form”. Possibly, but that doesn’t mean it’s a return to substance.
I don’t think there’s a whole lot of difference between the Live ’69 version and the Cowboy Junkies’ arrangement, so why does the CJ version get tagged as “dirge-like”?
Very good point. When I first heard Live ’69, I thought to myself, “Oh, that’s where the Cowboy Junkies got that arrangement and those lyrics!”
I just thought of another reason why I’ve avoided solo Lou Reed: Those Lester Bangs interviews from the mid-’70s. As entertaining as they are, you don’t come really come away from them particular eager to hear those albums, probably because Bangs was pretty down on most, if not all, of them. (I still can’t figure out how much of his “championing” of Metal Machine Music was a joke.)
I have a feeling there will be a lot of debate here over who gets to write the “hairy balls” glossary entry. I’m staying out of it.
Chick, I had NO idea you were a fan of New York! I always think I know every musical detail about you, Andyr, and Sethro, yet now you drop this bomb on me. We may have to unleash an episode of RTH SECRETS in the coming days.
For me, Transformer is BY FAR the most disappointing Lou Reed solo album, if not the most disappointing album in my entire record collection. Beside the amazing “Walk on the Wild Side,” I get enjoyment of maybe a total of 1.5 songs, that total being composed of three .5s.
I’m usually very against lyrics that are “torn from today’s headlines”, but I thought New York was an excellent list of 1980s grievances. The guitar sounds are terrific. Lou’s talk/sing poetry works on that album better than it normally does. I like the songs that I like more than I dislike the songs I dislike. Would have made a very strong one-sided album. My enjoyment of New York is not a dirty secret to me, and I would not shy from telling Oprah that.
About that middle eight, is your dislike based on the actual part or on the disjointed production when it was added back in? The reason I ask is that on the earlier versions with the bridge, it is a very nice transition to the last chorus, coming down and building through the “Na na na na..” part. I think the splicing out on the original Loaded leaves a weird jumpcut in the structure that is overcome by the quality of what’s left of the song and also Reed’s outstandingly clumsy and great singing.
Oats, I’d like to know the secret chord, but I don’t know how to e-mail you, so…
Anyway, I have a question about this supposed “edited out” thing. The version on FULLY LOADED clearly has the “heavenly wine and roses” part edited IN from some live version (MAX’s, maybe?) Is there any reason to think that this part of the song was ever actually recorded in the studio? I don’t think it was–I think the version we know from the original LOADED release is the complete original recording. Anybody want to contradict that thought?
btw, my least favorite critically acclaimed Reed album is BLUE MASK, even though BERLIN and even TRANSFORMER are probably worse.
The reason is that BLUE MASK is so much MORE critically acclaimed than the others, and it’s so completely full of crap. “Women” and “Heavenly Arms” and even “The Heroine” are Lou sticking it to the rock critics, and as every year passes, they sound worse and worse and more obviously Lou trying to convince people (including himself) that he’s something he’s not.
Also, though the album has some really great musical moents, it may be the very worst singing of his career. The phrasing sounds completely wrong throughout…it’s really irritating.
About that middle eight, is your dislike based on the actual part or on the disjointed production when it was added back in? The reason I ask is that on the earlier versions with the bridge, it is a very nice transition to the last chorus, coming down and building through the “Na na na na..” part. I think the splicing out on the original Loaded leaves a weird jumpcut in the structure that is overcome by the quality of what’s left of the song and also Reed’s outstandingly clumsy and great singing.
A well-phrased question that hits on all the key points, geo! First of all, from the time I first heard the break on 1969 and Max’s albums – after knowing and loving the original Loaded version – I never thought the break added a whole lot. It sounded to me like he thought, as a songwriting device, that a middle EIGHT (thanks again, shawnkilroy!) was a “cool” device to use. To me, its role in setting up the “nah, nahs” is to the song’s detriment. I never think of that part on the original Loaded version. I actually LOVE the way the jumpcut edit launches into the song’s coda. THAT’S the peak moment in the song for me, like some stomach-turning camera swing in a Scorcese movie, not the post-hippy-chic nah-nahs. That was probably Jonathan Richman’s favorite part in the song, leading to his rapid downfall into thumbsucking, Ken doll music.
Later, of course, I learned that Reed was pissed that the middle EIGHT was spliced out of the Loaded recording. To me, it was one more sign that Reed must be a major tool.
All that said, I can live with that part of the song on the live versions and probably wouldn’t have given this subject so much thought since 1980 if it had been left in the original mix of Loaded. What finally drove me over the edge was its reinsertion without the context of the original mix. Like the dreaded added measures before the coda of “Rock ‘n Roll,” from the same box set reissue, I’m listening to “Sweet Jane” in all its originally recorded glory and next thing I know I’m listening to the middle EIGHT as picked up on the drum overhead mics! No disrespect to the mentally challenged, but it’s retarded!
By the way, STREET HASSLE is another album that has aged very badly. Critics all loved it, and somehow managed to neglect to mention that 80% of side two is completely forgettable.
Thanks for the offer, geo, but I’ve got 2 copies of the vinyl. That’s one of many albums I still prefer hearing on vinyl, no matter how many times new technology makes it sound more like it was meant to sound.
Street Hassle mainly exists for the title track, no? Ever since the following album showed the world what Lou Reed’s music was really supposed to sound like, the rest of the album was exposed as crap.
The CD called The Best of the velvet Underground: The Words & Music of Lou Reed ends with the original versions of Sweet Jane and Rock & Roll back to back. I agree with Oats’ points about Sweet Jane’s middle eighth. I don’t mind different parts of a song sounding different. The opening 15 seconds after all sound like they’re flown in from a different and much trippier planet. The extra couple of bars of very faint chords in Rock & Roll are also cool with me, but I’m glad that the edited versions are out there for people who need the straight stuff.
And I think Street Hassle is easily the greatest Lou Reed solo album. The whole thing. And the eponymous first solo album is his most underrated.
I dislike Transformer and really like RnR Animal. I’d put money on the fact that my saying so proves Mr. Mod’s theory about why people feel about that album the way they do. Never could see all that much on the acclaimed Street Hassle.
Oh, and the video here. Very new wave quirky and kinda dull, with a few moments I liked. Not sure I know how to judge it in basketball terms. “Wow, Bob, he really scored on some small part of that shot.”
I heard The Cowboy Junkies version about 100 times before I ever heard Lou or The Velvets do it. I think they use the bridge to great effect. Of course, they throw out the verse entirely and use that “anyone who’s ever had a heart…” part as the verse. I like it though.
My fave version of that is the one on Loaded, which I too enjoy on vinyl.
Also, I heard Spacemen 3’s Ode To Street Hassle for years and years before ever getting Lou’s album, which I think is pretty cool. Not his best, and certainly not his worst.
Boy. I dislike some Lou Reed, but almost none of what has been mentioned here as execrable. I have always loved Transformer, and Andy’s Chest, Vicious, Satellite of Love, were always on rotation @ my house. I think the Blue Mask is beautifully produced and performed, and have always loved Women and the Herione. Big Mess did a cover of Heavenly Arms once. I like Street Hassle a lot. And no one has mentioned Take No Prisoners, some superb live Reed! Rock and Roll Animal is clearly a match made in some place I don’t like, but its identity as a public earsore – its stripes and plaids issues of band and Reed – and the time when I first heard it, render it likable to me. I thought that was his period with Alice Coopers band. Where’d that come from? Anyhow, let’s don’t push Mr. Mod to arguing that Max’s Kansas City is better than all of these records! I’m guessing that the audible discomfort of Lou Squeezing into Rock and Roll Animal is what send that record home for him.
I went back and listened to Street Hassle again for the first time in a few years. I still think it’s a great record. But I was reminded why I don’t listen to Lou Reed anymore.
Part of me finds the whole thing so wholly pretentious and self-important that I want to scream. There’s nothing here that’s remotely radio-friendly. It’s essentially an album of harrowing self-hatred (filler) that works together really, really well.
Happily, this sort of stuff isn’t my cup of tea anymore.
Far be it from me, pete, to try to make you like something you don’t, but one of the things I like about Street Hassle is that it has balance between its light and dark sides. To quote the opening song:
Gimme, gimme, gimme some good times
Gimme, gimme, gimme some pain
No matter how ugly you are
You know to me it all looks the same
Certainly the title song is pretentious, and the central drama is dark, but not completely so (the way he uses ‘slip away’ to mean towards love and death). And there are more upbeat songs on the album, like I Wanna Be Black and Real Good Time, to balance against the (self)loathing of Leave Me Alone and Dirt.
I just like everything about the album, especially the sound, the way the live and studio sounds mix, shifting kaleidoscopically mid-song.
The whole feel of the album reminds me of that Oscar Wilde quote:
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Boy, I never cared for this fellow. But that snare sound, take it from me – that sound is going to live forever!
It’s not an option in the poll, but my favorite version of Sweet Jane is probably Mott the Hoople’s.
yukk. I hate Jim Carrol.
Neither air ball nor dunk. It’s more like one of those shots that eventually goes in after bouncing around the rim for an improbably long time.
I’m just a sucker for this song so I can see the good in all of the versions that I’ve heard, even the Cowboy Junkies.
That said, I picked the original LP version in the pool and would rank the Rock and Roll Animal version second (mostly because of the profound impact that it had on me at the time).
Air ball.
I picked the version on Loaded because it’s the only one I can remember. An ex-girlfriend took my copy of the Loaded reissue 10 years ago and my copy of 1969: VU Live is stored away with the rest of my vinyl on another continent. 🙁 I frankly can’t remember either very well.
And I, gulp, never actually owned Rock N Roll Animal. Am I banned now or what?
Airball. A VU cover has to be pretty bad for me to prefer the original.
Can I add that I really like Mitch Ryder’s cover of “Rock & Roll” on his Detroit record?
butcher pete:
You get no demerits from me. I don’t consider it to be part of the canon, it just played a pivotal role in my development, or lack there of.
In fact, I haven’t listened to R&R Animal in years, and recall it being rather bombastic. But when I first heard Sweet Jane on the radio (1979) it was that version and it blew me away. I quit the crew team and started playing guitar and I’m still playing in a band all these years later.
It also marked the end of me being a mere “fan” and the beginning of me blossoming into the obsessive rock nerd that I am today.
Rock and Roll Animal is 1 of those records where the cover is sooo promising, and the content is SUCKTACULAR!
so lousy! German Prog Metal Nerds trying to play clasic Velvets and Lou Reed Material.
stinks.
Should be a lay-up because it’s such a great and simple song nobody could screw it up, right? But then the Cowboy Junkies “choked and fucked the lay-up.” So Jim Carroll’s to me is two-handed set shot from the block, off the board, on a backyard eight-foot rim: that 80s thump to it makes me think of Rick Springfield or something. Got to go with the original version, though R’n’R Animal is pretty great, too. Also have a soft spot for Two Nice Girls’ version where they mix it up with Joan Armatrading’s Affection.
I’m with shawnkilroy — I don’t like R&R Animal. I saw that lineup on tour, and it sucked live too. I’ve got 20+ Lou Reed albums, but not that one.
I can believe that some of you don’t dig R’nR Animal, but come on – five of you prefer the reissued Loaded version of “Sweet Jane” with the out-of-context restored middle eighth?!?!
I love Rock ‘n Roll Animal, but manly man that I am, I’m sure that doesn’t surprise anyone.
Funny, I had always thought that Rock N Roll Animal was “canonical” for Reed/VU fans, if not rock fans in general.
My only definitive memory of that record is the night I stayed up all night with a friend and went out on his 5 am paper route around northern California. We were driving a Ford Pinto, and Rock N Roll Animal sounded pretty good.
This thread got me thinking about the cover of “Rock & Roll” that Mitch Ryder did on that Detroit album and I ended up listening all night.
Google is a cool thing. Turns out the guitarist Steve Hunter on that album later worked with Lou Reed on the Berlin album (produced by Erzin too) and he’s the guy you hear on Rock & Roll Animal. Small world.
I also have memories of listening to Rock & Roll Animal at a friend’s house after school back in the day. That said, I do prefer the VU’s versions of Sweet Jane on Loaded, as well as the 1969 Live version, which are both more subtle than the R ‘n R version. I think that the intro to the Loaded version is the prettiest into that I ever heard. I was also one of the five people who voted for the reissued Loaded version w/the middle eighth restored, although they should have let the original version on the reissued CD.
Thanks for coming clean, diskojoe. butcher pete, that Mitch Ryder/Detroit tie-in with R’nR Animal was a cool thing to learn about. I think someone here pointed out that version to me a couple of years ago.
Here’s a side topic:
What’s your least-favorite critically acclaimed Lou Reed album, excluding New York, which I think everyone has since come to admit was prematurely critically acclaimed:
Transformer
Rock ‘n Roll Animal
The Blue Mask
Of course, “Other” is a possible answer, but please specify. We should probably leave Berlin out of the discussion, too, because that one is as much hated as it is critically acclaimed, right?
Dude, it’s MIDDLE EIGHT! As in Eight bars of music in the middle of the song. What is this eighth business? Eighth of what?
and RNR Animal is my least favorite Lou Reed album of critical acclaim.
The Blue Mask stinks too, but at least it stinks on it’s own terms, as opposed to a bunch of good songs that were wankily ruined by a bunch of European overplayers.
I really dislike Rock’n’Roll Animal. In general, it’s not my style of music, but the thing that makes me negative about it is the distracting contrast between Reed’s distant, moribund delivery and the mock heroic style of music. I really think the versions of those great VU classics on there make the Jim Carroll Sweet Jane inspirational.
The band on R’n’R Animal makes Lou sound inept and Lou makes the band sound silly!
Way to apply the Pince Nez to Mr. Mod, shawnkilroy. Thanks. I needed that!
The hatred for Rock ‘n Roll Animal that’s being expressed is fascinating! I’m beginning to form some broad and most likely inaccurate generalizations about those of you who can’t stand that album, but I’ll hold off for a while on sharing them so that when I do so I can share my thoughts with the false bravado of having “thought about this for a long time.”
Mr. Mod, here is the deal with the middle-eight version of “Sweet Jane.” I first heard it maybe two years after I first heard the original, edited version. That did not give me enough time to build up so much affection for the edited version that I found any deviation to be offensive. I imagine many other latter-day Velvets converts feel the same way.
I barely ever listen to solo Lou Reed. I only own Transformer. I used to own Magic and Loss, but I never listened to it. As I recall, that album is totally boring and tuneless.
I have heard the RnR Animal version of “Sweet Jane,” but nothing else from that album. It’s stupid and unnecessary, but I don’t hate it, maybe because it has a camp value as a particular nadir in the saga of Lou/The Velvets. If I want to hear a ’70s, hairy-balls version of “Sweet Jane,” I’ll listen to Mott the Hoople.
I’m okay with the Cowboy Junkies version.
This site fulfills any need I have for solo Lou, in the proper contest… the way it was meant to sound!
That Live 1969 version also has the “heavenly wine and roses” bit so it wasn’t really a shock when I heard the reissued version with the middle eight.
I don’t think there’s a whole lot of difference between the Live ’69 version and the Cowboy Junkies’ arrangement, so why does the CJ version get tagged as “dirge-like”?
Oats, I think we need a glossary entry for ‘hairy-balls.’ That’s a term that could really enter the lexicon of rock discourse.
Whatever its testicular hirsuteness, I don’t like hard rock, though it’s one of those I-know-it-when-I-hear-it distastes, since I do like some music that could be considered hard rock. R&R Animal just seems like 70s AOR twiddleyness laid on top of Lou Reed’s music. The contrast with Lou’s can’t-get-it-up delivery is less interesting than it ought to be.
I don’t really like Transformer, and I’ve only recently come to appreciate the songs on Berlin. I still don’t like the sound. Bob Ezrin is bad news.
The Blue Mask
It can’t be R&R Animal for me due to sentimental reasons.
Transformer, as disappointing as it is, at least has some really good songs on it.
I haven’t heard the Blue Mask in a while but I recall hearing how it was a “return to form”. Possibly, but that doesn’t mean it’s a return to substance.
Very good point. When I first heard Live ’69, I thought to myself, “Oh, that’s where the Cowboy Junkies got that arrangement and those lyrics!”
I just thought of another reason why I’ve avoided solo Lou Reed: Those Lester Bangs interviews from the mid-’70s. As entertaining as they are, you don’t come really come away from them particular eager to hear those albums, probably because Bangs was pretty down on most, if not all, of them. (I still can’t figure out how much of his “championing” of Metal Machine Music was a joke.)
I have a feeling there will be a lot of debate here over who gets to write the “hairy balls” glossary entry. I’m staying out of it.
I love Transformer.
It’s like Lou Reed & The Spiders From Mars!
Outta site!
I think I only know Sweet Jane from RnR Animal. I haven’t heard it in years, but always really liked that version. Put me in the Pro camp.
Don’t know Transformer at all.
Really like The Blue Mask; Waves of Fear, Underneath the Bottle, My House all winners. That album has a beautiful sound too.
I’m also a fan of New York. I think it deserved the praise it received. It would be better with 2-3 fewer songs. It’s really long.
Chick, I had NO idea you were a fan of New York! I always think I know every musical detail about you, Andyr, and Sethro, yet now you drop this bomb on me. We may have to unleash an episode of RTH SECRETS in the coming days.
For me, Transformer is BY FAR the most disappointing Lou Reed solo album, if not the most disappointing album in my entire record collection. Beside the amazing “Walk on the Wild Side,” I get enjoyment of maybe a total of 1.5 songs, that total being composed of three .5s.
I’m usually very against lyrics that are “torn from today’s headlines”, but I thought New York was an excellent list of 1980s grievances. The guitar sounds are terrific. Lou’s talk/sing poetry works on that album better than it normally does. I like the songs that I like more than I dislike the songs I dislike. Would have made a very strong one-sided album. My enjoyment of New York is not a dirty secret to me, and I would not shy from telling Oprah that.
Mr. Mod,
About that middle eight, is your dislike based on the actual part or on the disjointed production when it was added back in? The reason I ask is that on the earlier versions with the bridge, it is a very nice transition to the last chorus, coming down and building through the “Na na na na..” part. I think the splicing out on the original Loaded leaves a weird jumpcut in the structure that is overcome by the quality of what’s left of the song and also Reed’s outstandingly clumsy and great singing.
By the way, did you guys know there’s a “secret chord” in “Sweet Jane”? Email me off-list if you’d like more info.
Oats, I’d like to know the secret chord, but I don’t know how to e-mail you, so…
Anyway, I have a question about this supposed “edited out” thing. The version on FULLY LOADED clearly has the “heavenly wine and roses” part edited IN from some live version (MAX’s, maybe?) Is there any reason to think that this part of the song was ever actually recorded in the studio? I don’t think it was–I think the version we know from the original LOADED release is the complete original recording. Anybody want to contradict that thought?
btw, my least favorite critically acclaimed Reed album is BLUE MASK, even though BERLIN and even TRANSFORMER are probably worse.
The reason is that BLUE MASK is so much MORE critically acclaimed than the others, and it’s so completely full of crap. “Women” and “Heavenly Arms” and even “The Heroine” are Lou sticking it to the rock critics, and as every year passes, they sound worse and worse and more obviously Lou trying to convince people (including himself) that he’s something he’s not.
Also, though the album has some really great musical moents, it may be the very worst singing of his career. The phrasing sounds completely wrong throughout…it’s really irritating.
I used to claim that I liked Street Hassle. Haven’t listened to it in years.
Geo asked:
A well-phrased question that hits on all the key points, geo! First of all, from the time I first heard the break on 1969 and Max’s albums – after knowing and loving the original Loaded version – I never thought the break added a whole lot. It sounded to me like he thought, as a songwriting device, that a middle EIGHT (thanks again, shawnkilroy!) was a “cool” device to use. To me, its role in setting up the “nah, nahs” is to the song’s detriment. I never think of that part on the original Loaded version. I actually LOVE the way the jumpcut edit launches into the song’s coda. THAT’S the peak moment in the song for me, like some stomach-turning camera swing in a Scorcese movie, not the post-hippy-chic nah-nahs. That was probably Jonathan Richman’s favorite part in the song, leading to his rapid downfall into thumbsucking, Ken doll music.
Later, of course, I learned that Reed was pissed that the middle EIGHT was spliced out of the Loaded recording. To me, it was one more sign that Reed must be a major tool.
All that said, I can live with that part of the song on the live versions and probably wouldn’t have given this subject so much thought since 1980 if it had been left in the original mix of Loaded. What finally drove me over the edge was its reinsertion without the context of the original mix. Like the dreaded added measures before the coda of “Rock ‘n Roll,” from the same box set reissue, I’m listening to “Sweet Jane” in all its originally recorded glory and next thing I know I’m listening to the middle EIGHT as picked up on the drum overhead mics! No disrespect to the mentally challenged, but it’s retarded!
By the way, STREET HASSLE is another album that has aged very badly. Critics all loved it, and somehow managed to neglect to mention that 80% of side two is completely forgettable.
I’m pretty sure I have an old CD release with the original Loaded versions. If it would make you happy I could…
Thanks for the offer, geo, but I’ve got 2 copies of the vinyl. That’s one of many albums I still prefer hearing on vinyl, no matter how many times new technology makes it sound more like it was meant to sound.
Street Hassle mainly exists for the title track, no? Ever since the following album showed the world what Lou Reed’s music was really supposed to sound like, the rest of the album was exposed as crap.
The CD called The Best of the velvet Underground: The Words & Music of Lou Reed ends with the original versions of Sweet Jane and Rock & Roll back to back. I agree with Oats’ points about Sweet Jane’s middle eighth. I don’t mind different parts of a song sounding different. The opening 15 seconds after all sound like they’re flown in from a different and much trippier planet. The extra couple of bars of very faint chords in Rock & Roll are also cool with me, but I’m glad that the edited versions are out there for people who need the straight stuff.
And I think Street Hassle is easily the greatest Lou Reed solo album. The whole thing. And the eponymous first solo album is his most underrated.
I like this version, part Huey Lewis and The News, part The Cars. The video is very retro cool (of course this was not retro back then…just cool)
It does not add anything to the original but it is better than most covers and most Lou Reed live versions
I think doing this song pre “Alternative era” forgives the obviosness
I dislike Transformer and really like RnR Animal. I’d put money on the fact that my saying so proves Mr. Mod’s theory about why people feel about that album the way they do. Never could see all that much on the acclaimed Street Hassle.
Oh, and the video here. Very new wave quirky and kinda dull, with a few moments I liked. Not sure I know how to judge it in basketball terms. “Wow, Bob, he really scored on some small part of that shot.”
I heard The Cowboy Junkies version about 100 times before I ever heard Lou or The Velvets do it. I think they use the bridge to great effect. Of course, they throw out the verse entirely and use that “anyone who’s ever had a heart…” part as the verse. I like it though.
My fave version of that is the one on Loaded, which I too enjoy on vinyl.
Also, I heard Spacemen 3’s Ode To Street Hassle for years and years before ever getting Lou’s album, which I think is pretty cool. Not his best, and certainly not his worst.
Boy. I dislike some Lou Reed, but almost none of what has been mentioned here as execrable. I have always loved Transformer, and Andy’s Chest, Vicious, Satellite of Love, were always on rotation @ my house. I think the Blue Mask is beautifully produced and performed, and have always loved Women and the Herione. Big Mess did a cover of Heavenly Arms once. I like Street Hassle a lot. And no one has mentioned Take No Prisoners, some superb live Reed! Rock and Roll Animal is clearly a match made in some place I don’t like, but its identity as a public earsore – its stripes and plaids issues of band and Reed – and the time when I first heard it, render it likable to me. I thought that was his period with Alice Coopers band. Where’d that come from? Anyhow, let’s don’t push Mr. Mod to arguing that Max’s Kansas City is better than all of these records! I’m guessing that the audible discomfort of Lou Squeezing into Rock and Roll Animal is what send that record home for him.
P.S. Always loved the Cowboy Junkies first record, including Sweet Jane.
I went back and listened to Street Hassle again for the first time in a few years. I still think it’s a great record. But I was reminded why I don’t listen to Lou Reed anymore.
Part of me finds the whole thing so wholly pretentious and self-important that I want to scream. There’s nothing here that’s remotely radio-friendly. It’s essentially an album of harrowing self-hatred (filler) that works together really, really well.
Happily, this sort of stuff isn’t my cup of tea anymore.
Far be it from me, pete, to try to make you like something you don’t, but one of the things I like about Street Hassle is that it has balance between its light and dark sides. To quote the opening song:
Gimme, gimme, gimme some good times
Gimme, gimme, gimme some pain
No matter how ugly you are
You know to me it all looks the same
Certainly the title song is pretentious, and the central drama is dark, but not completely so (the way he uses ‘slip away’ to mean towards love and death). And there are more upbeat songs on the album, like I Wanna Be Black and Real Good Time, to balance against the (self)loathing of Leave Me Alone and Dirt.
I just like everything about the album, especially the sound, the way the live and studio sounds mix, shifting kaleidoscopically mid-song.
The whole feel of the album reminds me of that Oscar Wilde quote:
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Street Hassle might also be Lou’s best album cover. It’s pretty damned cool!