Lou Reed and the Immortality of Music.

One of the bonuses of hanging out in the studio this summer with Jeremy Darby was that I got to hear personal stories about his friend Lou Reed.  I didn’t realize and was surprised to learn that Lou Reed had just had a liver transplant and was in failing health.  I guess I’d imagined these iconic figures to be immortal – a byproduct of what their music is.  But they are, after all, only human – flawed, vulnerable and yet capable of making powerful and transformative art despite their fragile shells.  (Except, of course, Keith Richards, an original rocker who seems to defy the laws of physics and biology). And so with this news of Lou Reed’s death at only 71, almost in tandem with the birth of Jeremy’s son, I am reminded of the ephemeral nature of the body – and the timeless, immutable quality of poetic, visceral, born-from-the-soul music.

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