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Unread 05-15-2022, 10:33 AM
John Isbell John Isbell is offline
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Location: TX
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Lou Reed and John Cale put out a fine tribute album to Andy Warhol at his death, Songs for Drella. Here's the album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKwo3QFWp4c


And here's a poem on it:


The Style It Takes

At the end of a long day
I find myself

immersed in Songs for Drella,
where Lou Reed and John Cale

tell Andy Warhol’s story. He has got
the style it takes
, sings John Cale

in his flat voice, and every muscle
in my back, neck and shoulders

begins to ease. This is
an elegy, where grief

and anger meet, though art burns through
those passions like a flame.

I fired him on the spot, Lou sings, and Andy Warhol
calls him a rat. It’s just

work
, this song says, and the guitar
does that. Each note abrades the soul, the way

an emery board
abrades the foot. It wasn’t me,

Lou sings; life in its vivid
red and orange fills my listening mind.

The simplest
words eat my heart, the way a bird

tore at Prometheus, while the music –
ah, the music! –

says life is beautiful,
and worth the living.