the blue mask

Lou Reed kicked his addictions and found his comfort zone with this mature and beautifully blistering tour de force. 'The Blue Mask' came after a two-year hiatus from music during which he got sober and put together a new band featuring former Voidoids guitarist Robert Quine, bassist Fernando Saunders from the Jeff Beck Jan Hammer Group, and drummer Doane Perry. The quartet sounds strong and focused. In particular, the interplay between Quine and Reed is very expressive. Reed was inspired to play guitar again after years of being a front man. Lou's guitar parts are on the left channel and Quine's are on the right. They recorded live in the studio. Quine remembers, "We'd just go in every day and do at least one, maybe two songs. We'd start to play and the arrangement would take shape."

The lyrics show Reed assimilating his various contradictory personas into some kind of cohesive whole: "People say that rock-and-roll is constricting, but you can do anything you want. And my goal has been to make an album that would speak to people the way Shakespeare speaks to me, the way Joyce speaks to me. Something with that kind of power; something with that kind of bite." 

 That bite was tempered somewhat by his newfound domestic felicity with his wife Sylvia Morales; but his straitforward approach makes the emotions more vivid even as he plumbs the darkness of his past. Reed says, "Some people like to think I'm just this black-leather clad person in sunglasses. And there's certainly that side of me; I wouldn't want to deny my heritage. But while I have my street smarts, I'm not a rat from the street by any means. I always wanted to be a writer, and I went to college to prepare for it."

Reed had left RCA for Arista Records for a few years; but returned to RCA for 'The Blue Mask'. He produced the album with Sean Fullan at RCA Studios in New York. It was hailed as a return to form for Reed and was the start of a strong trilogy of albums. 'The Blue Mask' reached number one hundred and sixty nine in the US and peaked at number fifteen in France. Sylvia Morales designed the album cover using the image from 'Transformer'.






http://www.loureed.com/

The blissful "My House" is a tribute to his departed mentor and poet Delmore Schwartz

"I really got a lucky life

my writing, my motorcycle and my wife

And to top it all off a spirit of pure poetry

is living in this stone and wood house with me"

"Underneath the Bottle" is a cheeky reflection on his recovery process.

"Seven days make a week, on two of them I sleep

I can't remember what the heck I was doing

I got bruise on my leg -

- from I can't remember when

I fell down some stairs, I was lyin' underneath the bottle"

"The Gun"

"The man has a gun

he knows how to use it

Nine millimeter Browning

let's see what he can do"

"The Blue Mask"

"They tied his arms behind his back, to teach him how to swim

They put blood in his coffee and milk in his gin

They stood over the soldier, in the midst of the squalor

There was war in his body and it caused his brain to holler"

"Waves of Fear"

"I'm too afraid to use the phone

I'm too afraid to put the light on

I'm so afraid I've lost control

I'm suffocating without a word

Crazy with sweat, spittle on my jaw

what's that funny noise, what's that on the floor

Waves of fear, pulsing with death

I curse my tremors, I jump at my own step

I cringe at my terror, I hate my own smell

I know where I must be, I must be in hell"

"The Day John Kennedy Died"

"I dreamed I was the president of these United States

I dreamed I replaced ignorance, stupidity and hate

I dreamed the perfect union and a perfect law, undenied

And most of all I dreamed I forgot the day John Kennedy died

I dreamed that I could do the job, that others hadn't done

I dreamed that I was uncorrupt and fair to everyone

I dreamed I wasn't gross or base, a criminal on the take

And most of all I dreamed I forgot the day John Kennedy died"

"Heavenly Arms" is a song for Sylvia. Fernando sings backup vocals.

"Heavenly arms come to my rescue

Only a woman can love a man

In a world full of hate, love should never wait

Heavenly arms reach out to me

Heavenly arms strong as a sunset

Heavenly arms pure as the rain

Lovers stand warned of the world's impending storm

Heavenly arms reach out to me"

'The Blue Mask'
full album:



All songs written by Lou Reed.

Side one
"My House" - 5:25
"Women" - 4:57
"Underneath the Bottle" - 2:33
"The Gun" - 3:41
"The Blue Mask" - 5:06
Side two
"Average Guy" - 3:12
"The Heroine" - 3:06
"Waves of Fear" - 4:11
"The Day John Kennedy Died" - 4:08
"Heavenly Arms" - 4:47