Abstract
Starting with his band the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed wrote songs imbued with nonmoral depictions of people’s emotional experiences with drug use, sex work, marriage, poverty, friendships, and other aspects of life and survival in New York City. This paper presents an interpretation of Reed’s words and music from the twin perspective of geography and psychology. Drawing on materials in the Lou Reed Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the author conducted a comprehensive analysis of song recordings released over three distinct periods of Reed’s music career. Each song was considered within the framework of a psychoevolutionary theory of human emotions and situated in New York’s diverse spaces and places. Reed’s grounded lyrics convey a deep empathy for people’s triumphs, setbacks, and conflicts as they search for love and act on a desire for transcendence and freedom. The paper recommends further research into songwriters who use their biography to tell geographic stories.
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