Lou Reed, John Cale, Warhol's Ghost

Songs for 'Drella performed live, 1989

SONGS FOR 'DRELLA — A FICTION

A musical memoir about Andy Warhol. Words, music and performance by Lou Reed and John Cale. Set design, photography and scenic projections by Jerome Sirlin. Lighting design by Robert Wierzel. Wednesday night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

There are two breeds of heckler: the moron and the idiot savant. Each had his say at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Wednesday night when Lou Reed and John Cale officially unleashed their series of songs about their former mentor Andy Warhol. (Most of the songs were performed in 1989 as a work-in-progress at St. Ann's Church, also in Brooklyn).

The moron interrupted the proceedings twice, with shouts for "Pale Blue Eyes" and "The Black Angel's Death Song," tunes from the repertoire of the Velvet Underground, the influential rock band sponsored by Warhol and led by Reed and Cale in the 1960s. Although "Songs for 'Drella" — a Warhol nickname — marked the first time in two decades that Reed and Cale worked together, this was no Velvet Underground reunion.

Toward the end of the show, however, there was another request from the audience. "Tell us something we don't know," the voice pleaded. And while hecklers are, by definition, rude idiots, this comment was sort of true.

While Reed and Cale hedge by calling "Songs for 'Drella" a "fiction," it's really a plain-spoken musical biography that begins with "Smalltown," about Warhol's not exactly unique decision to leave any other place--in Warhol's case, Pittsburgh--to seek his for-tune in New York. It ends with "Hello, It's Me," Reed's awkward but touching last words to the dead Warhol.

Few beside the acerbic, notoriously defensive Reed could put together the blend  of apology and vengefulness that characterizes that closing song. Reed's sorry he and Warhol didn't talk in Warhol's last years, yet he's furious at Warhol's snide characterizations of Reed in the recently published Warhol diaries. "I have some resentments that can never  be unmade," Reed sings. (Having suffered through a punishing two hour interview with Reed (click the red highlight to read), I might echo the sentiments, if not the time and place, of the impolite loudmouth who said "Tell us something we don't know.")

 [Listening to the 1990 ‘Drella album again back here in 2023, there is immense sorrow and pity in "Hello It's Me." We listen to Reed talk-sing, from lines in Warhol’s diaries, “You know I hate Lou, I really do. He won’t even hire us for his videos, and I was so proud of him …” Such pathos!]  

Lingering resentments--not just between Reed and Warhol, also Reed and Cale, may explain the uneasy tone of many of the songs, the half-heartedness of some of this ostensible tribute, which recounts Warhol's life in a chronological order. But there's no joy in these songs, no sense of the adventure and excitement (or the debauchery and excess) of Being There, at Andy's studio, The Factory, when pop was being reborn.

Consider the shallowness of some of the songs, about how elements from Warhol's background shaped his adult life.

In "Open House," the Czechoslovakian custom of inviting people up for tea is offered as the precedent for the informal, welcoming mood of Warhol's artistic entity, The Factory. Never mind that this "custom" is echoed in some way by virtually every other ethnic group or nationality on the planet, from England to India and the Muslim world. And we're reminded about the strength of Warhol's "Catholic" work ethic in the song, called "Work," on which Reed puts in overtime to rock the house out of its solemnity. Reed and Cale don't illuminate precisely how Warhol's work ethic is different from anyone else's work ethic.

These aren't the only songs that don't stand up to a second thought. In "Smalltown," Reed laments that "there's no Michelangelo coming from Pittsburgh." But isn't that where all great artists arrive from, a Pittsburgh of the Mind, who come to New York, Los Angeles, Rome, Paris, London, to pursue their creative bliss? Wasn’t that the story of New York punk rock, the Church of CBGB, the pews filled with out-of-towners seeking shelter and illumination?

In "The Trouble With Classicists," Cale sings of Warhol's disdain for the Old Masters ("they look at a tree / that's all they see / they paint a tree").

That concept is, of course, anathema to a man inspired by higher things, such as Campbell soup cans and Brillo soap pad boxes.

Although words occasionally fail Reed and Cale, their music rarely does. The spare mix of street-smart Reed's guitar and classical trained Cale's viola and keyboards are sometimes captivating: nostalgic Velvet Underground fans cheered lustily when Cale picked up the viola. He played and sang with a dark elegance on tunes such as "Faces and Names," but most often he was merely the foil for some of the most inventive guitar playing Reed has done. Reed has perfected a percussive tone that enhances the mood of the plain lyrics, and Cale has always adapted his educated manner to plaintive rock and roll banging, when appropriate. He’d smash his viola on an amplifier if there was a good enough reason.

Sometimes, though, Reed’s guitar just roars, while his words whisper. On "It Wasn't Me," his furious slashing riffs contrasted with Cale's drawing-room chords evoked not Warhol or the Velvets but another scene from the 1960s: the Black Panthers being introduced to patrician liberals by Leonard Bernstein in Tom Wolfe's "Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers."

This is an updated revision of a review that originally appeared in New York Newsday.