Lou Reed: The Noise That Changed My Life

More than 10 years ago. Eleven, to be exact. I went for a morning run, and in the 5 a.m. news, I heard a phrase that left me frozen: Lou Reed had died. Lou Reed—a name that rarely made headlines, a name unusual on the radio. How many people really knew who Lou Reed was? The news left me in shock. I wasn’t expecting his death, and yes, it hurt. It hurt more than the passing of some close family members.

Why? Because Lou felt close, almost like a friend. I knew every corner of his work, each song like a confidence shared between us. In my circle of friends, deeply conservative and limited to heavy metal, Lou Reed was a constant provocation. They hated The Velvet Underground with the same intensity with which I adored them. They couldn’t understand that Lou Reed, along with John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Moe Tucker, had unleashed a noise in the ‘60s that stretched across decades.

That noise wasn’t just any noise. It was an echo that traveled from the ‘60s to the ‘70s and beyond, all the way to today. Lou Reed was ahead of his time, always a few steps forward. Didn’t they see him in the films of Wim Wenders or David Lynch? They couldn’t see how Lou Reed was in every discordant note, in every burst of distortion. While they idolized Metallica's Black Album, decades later, Metallica would be at Lou Reed's feet in a collaboration that defied all expectations: Lulu.

It took years for The Velvet Underground to be understood. Most people caught on with the rise of alternative rock in the ‘90s, almost 30 years later. And even now, it may take decades before some come to grasp the weight of Lulu, Lou Reed's musical testament that remains misunderstood, challenging, and brutally honest.

I remember, eleven years ago, praying after his death. Not for the rest of his soul, but in gratitude for his music, which had been my companion since adolescence. Back then, I would sleep in that empty room, with a mattress on the floor, the silver light of the moon coming in through the window, and a tape player that played Lou and the Velvet's recordings over and over. A life had been saved by rock ‘n’ roll, and in that moment, everything was all right.