Tell It To Your Heart

An excerpt from a book proposal on Lou Reed's 'New York' album

"Caught between the twisted stars the plotted lines the faulty map that brought Columbus to New York..."

So begins Lou Reed's 1989 album New York. In the first song of the cycle Reed manages to convey the urgency and passion of star-crossed lovers and the random nature of history, always written by the victors. When urged by Sylvia to name the album after the city that inspired it, Reed was reluctant, feeling it would appear presumptuous or pretentious. She pushed back, asking, what rock musician could stake a greater claim to the city than Lou?

"Romeo Had Juliette," New York's opening song, puts a gritty, lustful spin on Shakespeare's tribal lovers while setting the scene of a city that's sinking into the filthy Hudson, 'like ancient Rome'. Reed had also used the Romeo and Juliet trope on the title song of Legendary Hearts, a song that argues that all us fall short of the lofty goals we set for relationships, regardless of the goodness of our intentions:

Romeo, oh, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo

He's in a car or at a bar

Or churning his blood with an impure drug

He's in the past and seemingly lost forever

He worked hard at being good

But his basic soul was stained not pure

And when he took his bow

No audience was clapping

"Romeo Had Juliette" is a vignette depicting a tryst between Romeo Rodriguez, who lives the street life of gangs and drugs, and 'lithesome Juliette Bell.' Reed juxtaposes their unbridled sexual passion with the violence of the streets, with Lou and Mike Rathke's guitars careening wildly and providing a continuous counterpoint to the vocal. I used a track splitter to remove the vocals from this track and it's amazing to listen to the guitars playing a line against where the vocals usually command the listener's attention. It's instantly reminiscent of the chemistry between Reed and Quine on The Blue Mask--it's fair to say that it's the best guitar interplay since that album, which makes sense since Lou had essentially played all the guitar parts on New Sensations and Mistrial.

Playing with Quine, Reed learned something about creating an explosive guitar solo--it could be Quine playing Reed's nearly out of control eight bar solo that forces itself to our attention after Reed sings 'and her voice was like a bell.' Since Quine was channeling Reed's own guitar playing in the Velvet Underground, it becomes a Velvets reference and a New Lou Reed reference all at once.

In his biography Lou Reed: A Life, Anthony DeCurtis recounts how Reed contacted Fred Maher, now in London playing with the band Scritti Politti, and asked him to play on New York. Maher agreed, and Reed then asked for producer suggestions. Maher gave a few names, none of whom were apparently interested. 'What about me?' Maher asked. Reed was doubtful, telling Maher 'all you do is that synth-pop crap.' But Maher got Reed to agree to one day in the studio. On that day they recorded "Romeo Had Juliette" and Reed called and told Maher 'I sound like Lou Reed again for the first time in however many years. Let's do this."

When you look at the lyrics to "Romeo Had Juliette" on paper, you realize right away that it is poetry. You might not realize that the words on the page are the lyrics to a song if you didn't already know that, if you didn't know who Lou Reed was. Rock music instinctively understands that it is poetry, and as such the sound of the words can convey as much meaning as their actual meaning as words. "Caught between the twisted stars," "betwixt, between the east and west'. These lines are not usual pop song constructions. The song presents an onslaught of words, a barrage of internal monologue, sights and sounds that is normally the purview of poetry but which also mirrors the development of rap and hip hop flow. But most hip hop at this time still emphasized a stricter rhyme scheme than Reed does here. Reed uses internal rhymes in the lines of the song at first, but that breaks down as he goes through subsequent 'verses'--"Outside the streets were steaming..." In the final section it breaks down considerably, becoming completely conversational--"I'll take Manhattan in a garbage bag/with Latin written on it that says/'It's hard to give a shit these days.'

The image of lovers, however improbable, had fueled some of Reed's most memorable lyrics, resulting in songs that conveyed an element of romance and of clinging together in an urban landscape that was often threatening and less than understanding. The hail Mary 'glory of love' play from "Coney Island Baby," the 'Waltzing Matilda' opening of "Street Hassle" as well as the song's forlorn conclusion, the love as a battle with the self of "Legendary Hearts." Even when Reed has extracted himself from the city, he imagines the respite of "Our House" or the charming closing song of Legendary Hearts, "Rooftop Garden."

Reed returned to this imagery on the final track of Mistrial, his final RCA album recorded two years before New York. "Tell It To Your Heart" is a romantic gesture that could only be mustered by Reed or his friend Doc Pomus. In it, Reed is on the roof of his home staring through a telescope at a bright light in the sky. He sees the neon of a Coke sign and thinks how the name of his beloved should be beamed from satellites. In the second verse he's on the roof and sees the light again:

Maybe I should wake you up

But by then it might be gone

You never know what you see when if you look up in the sky

It's reminiscent of John Lennon's assertion that he had seen UFOs over New York City in the '70s. But when Lou gets restless, walking out on the streets of the city while lighting a cigarette, he turns the corner to find that his UFO is really the light from a television commercial being filmed.

All of this is couched musically in a style that evokes Reed's favorite doo-wop and street corner vocal group songs of the '50s and the Brill Building, conjuring Reed's own days as a songwriter-for-hire. The emotional punch comes from the chorus that Reed sings over the soulful background vocals of Ruben Blades and Fernando Saunders:

Tell it to your heart, please don't be afraid

I'm the one who loves you in each and every way

Tell it to your heart, please don't be afraid

N.Y.C. lovers

"Tell It To Your Heart" beautifully sets the stage for Reed's return on New York.

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