Magic And Loss

We'd been remembering John, and I was remembering Dad, who died in May and would have been 90 yesterday; all these years and I never realised he shared a birthday with Roy Lichtenstein (to the day), Sylvia Plath and Dylan Thomas. Many thoughts of not going gentle into that good night, therefore. And then I wake from a post-lunch snooze and turn on the internets and hear about Lou.

Well, that was one I didn't expect. It always seemed like Lou would outlive us all.

And we've probably all got an opinion on him, and he hated to be pinned down. He was a curmudgeonly misanthrope, he was a romantic; he was a dark literato, he was a waspish doo-wop fan; he was an ex pop hack, he was an avant gardeist; he was New York City tough, he was a fucked up nice Jewish boy from the suburbs; he was a conceptualist, he was a three chord guitar player with his bullshit detector tuned.

He was REAL (maaan); he invented himself (in true Warhol style).

You pass through arrogance, you pass through hurt
You pass through an ever present past
And it's best not to wait for luck to save you
Pass through the fire to the light

He was Lou.

There's a bit of magic in everything
And then some loss to even things out

Lou Reed - 'Magic And Loss - The Summation' (1992)