There Are People Who Remind You What's Possible
I don’t know where we are, and whether it’s cyclical. It feels cyclical. But anytime I see music or art that has a certain freedom and audacity, I get very, very happy. That’s what I personally want more than anything, is to be free. When there are people who remind you that it’s possible, that you don’t have to be stuck in somebody else’s idea of what you should believe. And I think Lou’s work was always about that.
Editor’s note: Nobody’s everything, but Laurie Anderson is everything. Start here.
Editor’s note continued: I meant what I said about Laurie Anderson and everything and nobody. I also mean it when I say I dedicate this song to you reading this.
Green is the first album that I memorized all the lyrics. In the tiny town of Dyer, TN I had found a whole new world in that cassette tape, my freshman year of high school, and my hopes and dreams for the future. It meant a hell of a lot to me. And because of it I learnt of Pale Blue Eyes. And because Pale Blue Eyes, VU. Because of VU, Lou Reed’s Magic and Loss. And freshmen year of college sitting in art appreciation, the teacher speaks of Laurie Anderson. Yeah, I know about her…so it goes. God doing for me in tiny little Dyer what I could not do for myself. A way out?
So many incredible moments in this interview, such a (like, I really mean this word) inspiring perspective on time and creation and America and what's actual v. what we've accepted as The Way Things Are . . . but I'm stuck on this early comment:
"I would say that as he grew older, for whatever reasons, I just noticed the more charitable parts."
I want that. I'll always be complicated--we all will--but I want the charitable parts to become more noticeable, to notice them more in others.