Back in time

17 January 2022

Artist: LOU REED
(2 March 1942 – 27 Oktober 2013)

Anniversary album: MAGIC AND LOSS – 16th LP
Released: 14 January 192 – 30 years ago

Info: “Magic and Loss was originally intended to be primarily about themes of magic
after hearing stories about magicians in Mexico. However, when tragedy struck during
the writing process, Reed expanded the album’s focus to themes of loss and death as well. Inspired in part by the illnesses and eventual deaths of two close friends, Magic and Loss was written for songwriter Doc Pomus, who had given Reed his start in the music business some 25 years earlier and a woman Reed has identified as “Rita”, popularly assumed to be Rotten Rita, who along with Reed was a familiar figure at Andy Warhol’s studio, the Factory, in the mid-to-late ’60s.

Rolling Stone wrote: “This is an album about death — and how to live with it. It is an eyewitness account, documented in compelling songs, of a losing battle with cancer, the mourning after and the little miracles that, for the mourner, mark the beginning of the
healing process. It will probably bum you out the first couple of times through.”
Score: 4/5.

Turn Up The Volume: Seeing Lou Reed playing the album from start
to finish in Brussels – 12 March 1992 – was goosebumps magic.

Full album…

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LOU REED: All Albums – Facebook