The late musician’s collected lyrics reveal a singular songwriter capable of tenderness, nihilism and everything in betweenLou Reed’s literary ambitions were there from the start, nurtured at Syracuse University in the early 1960s, where he studied English under the mysterious poet and short-story writer Delmore Schwartz, whom he would later acknowledge as his “spiritual godfather”. In 1966, having disappeared from public view for several years, Schwartz died alone and unsung, in a sleazy hotel in Times Square, aged 52. He had struggled with alcoholism, mental health issues and the heavy weight of early fame.
Schwartz could have been a character in a Lou Reed song. Instead, Reed wrote two songs about him. The first, European Son (to Delmore Schwartz), is the final track on the Velvet Underground’s 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. The song was actually recorded a few months before the poet’s death and sounds more like a put-down than a homage: “But now your blue clouds have gone/ You’d better say so long/ Hey hey, bye bye bye.” It may have been a riposte to the older writer’s oft-voiced disdain for the pop song.