Walk On the Wild Side [Live: Take No Prisoners]

[Lou Reed]
We had some kind of a nut here the other night man
There was no place to put the fucking glass
So like I put it on the floor
Because I didn't want to get the fucking piano dirty
Because it costs so fucking much
There's a lunatic out there who comes after the show says
"I wanna talk to that fucking Reed man
Why'd he throw a cup at his Roadie"
Five cops and he hits a cop
Gee man, what an asshole
Hey! And he has his brother here right
And he punches a cop, oh man
I want to talk to Lou about the answer to life
And why, why are you booing me?
So next time your wondering, and I don't live that far from here
Like I can say "Wow man" I get out of the limo and there's going to be the dragon with a cape saying "All your sins and then some."
And I say "But I'm not Catholic Jack"
The Umbrella man is on Rikers Island studying to be a dentist
You remember him? With the cape?

[Audience Member]
Hey Lou!

[Lou Reed]
What?
Suprise you huh?
What you think this is question and answer?
[?]
It's not my fault man
28,000 years ago come on, come on, come on
I don't have anything to say
I just want it to be quiet I've been here a week
You think that's an accomplishment?
I think that's something you're sentenced to
And if you don't get that, you get to play here [?]
2 hours with 14,000 animals throwing beer cans at you
Ah, but that's Rock'n'roll bullshit
Not behind my back it ain't
I stand corrected Michael

We know the rhythm come on
Ain't a metronome
Don't you show any passion
If you'd show any emotion I'd fire you
I am not sure, we did this song all week and
It's not like I don't want to play your favorites it's just...
There's so many favorites to choose from
No?
The thing is I was so sick of that song
And I don't get sick of my own songs, I like my own songs
So, we hadn't done her in a while
But it's only doing it at night
And It's not cause I like it, It's cause I'm not bored with it
Everybody gets bored of somebody sometimes
Except me, I'm lonely
Me and my several selves discuss it at night
Lou #1 and Lou, Lou #5
Hello
Is that you again? Reformer
Mea Culpa

Holly came from Miami F.L.A
I have no attitude without a cigarette
I'd rather have cancer than be a faggot
That wasn't an anti-gay remark
Coming from me man that's a compliment
Like going to bed with a brontosaurus, man
It's out of style, Whats its style?
Nothing is its style man
Have you gotten into nothing yet?
Why not, cause its nothing
Saturday night man where do you want to go
Watch me turn into Lou Reed before your very eyes!
Ahhh
I do Lou Reed better than anybody!
So I thought I'd get in on it
Enough attitude to kill every person in Jersey
Ask him if it's scientific

Holly came from Miami F.L.A
Hitchhiked, hitchhike - All the way across the U.S.A
Plucked her eyebrows along the way
Shaved her legs and said he was a she
And then she said
"Why don't you take a walk on the wild side?"
"Why don't you take a walk on the wild side?"

Would you like to know how that song got written?
I know you'd been dying to ask
Does that sound like Holly Woodlawn? That's an in-joke I guess
Believe it or not, the first time I quit Rock'n'roll
Because of too many lawsuits
'Cause I could not afford my lawyers
I still can't but now I got the government as partners
Fantastic, I get the government, like a week, you know
In Puerto Rico, in a nice hotel
And your like what are you complaining about asshole?
I just play guitar man

Hi Bruce

Springsteen is alright, by the way
He gets my seal of approval, I think he's groovy
You notice the way the critics turned on him
Like after they were on him right?
When he needed him, they weren't there
Critics
What does Robert Christgau do in bed?
You know, is he a toe-fucker?
Man, anal-retentive—The Consumer’s Guide to Rock?
What a moron!
A Consumer’s Guide to Rock, man! I object to the fucking liner notes
Start studying rock ‘n’ roll? I can’t believe it
“Baroque Rock: A Study by Robert Christgau.”
John Rockwell, man. Wow!
You know how heavy it is to get reviewed by Rockwell
And he says you’re intelligent?
Fuck you! I don’t need you to tell me that I’m good
“Mr. Reed.”
You know, you say
“Oh, man, I’m in The New York Times
It said ‘Mr. Reed.’”
Fuck you!
Your doorman wouldn’t kiss my ass, man, I don’t give a jackal
He, right, he studies at Harvard, right monologue
But dig this, man, opera!
A fucking opera guy, man!
And that’s the critic for The New York Times that makes and breaks the best rock bands that are very heavy and intelligent
Notice there are no colored rock groups?
Certainly not in The New York Times with John Roberts
He wouldn’t go there, man, he comes to CBGB’s with an armed guard
- Don’t touch me, man. And he’s a big dude
Somebody should say, “John, don’t be afraid.”
And Christgau is like an anal-retentive
Nice little boxes. “B-plus.” Can you imagine working for a fucking year and you got a B-plus from an asshole in The Village Voice?
And you don’t gotta take this shit
You don’t have to talk to the fucking journalists, man. And they get in for free, and the best seats, in case you’re interested
And there’s no way we can do anything about it
The club owners want the good review
So you get the asshole right up front, looking bored
He’s going, “When is this shit over, Marty? You got some coke?
Oh, boy. Anyway, I know you’re not interested in my problems
Neither am I

Candy came from out on Massapequa, Long Island
This is true! this is true! believe me
Oh wow is that true
In the backroom, she is everybody's darling
Went to a brothel and [?]
And when she was giving you the greatest head
Even when she was giving ya the greatest head
There was nothing Candy ever said but
"Hey babe, Why don't you come out and take a walk on the wild side."
I really miss Candy, and I didn't even know her that well
I'm such a scam artist
She had leukemia from a silicone tit, and I'm supposed to feel sorry?
Man! then don't fucking do that!
Don't you know, have health education?
Don't put plastic in your fucking tit
You got no heart, man I don't have enough heart for 14000 assholes
But I got enough for you! Oh Really?
You're almost as boring as you look, thanks
You look like a democrat, wanna go to bed?

Hey Little Joe
Little Joe is an idiot, I don't know if any of you know that
Here is this guy like this
You talk to him for like 2 minutes
And you realize he has an IQ of like 12
So like he is the only guy I know who went to Italy to be a movie star
And It's not happening
I mean everybody is ready to go to bed with him and make him a star
You know he can barely tie his shoelaces
And I know Einstein couldn't tie his shoelaces but it's not like that!
Not even close man
You know he just sits and watches the [?]
They say Joe your getting old, and he says
"I know"
"I'll make a Warhol film,"
But you can't do that anymore, man
Andy has taken himself away from us
And he's right, now I know why he did it!
So, Drella, if you're there: I'm very glad that you're around
But man, how, how- Catherine you're there
He went to see Monique van Vooren
What did she do, sack? Late Show?
Monique van Vooren, she has Gore Vidal as a watch
Him and Mailer
You know, I met Mailer at a party, he tries to punch you in the stomach to see how tough you are
He's pathetic, you know
Like "C'mon, man" and he's like "What?"
You gotta be kidding!
Somebody step on him, man
Go write a bible

Anyway, interesting people Sugar Plum Fairy
Hit the street
Sugar Plum Fairy
Now the person who loved the Sugar Farm Fairy
Is the terrible alright?
A real terror, she was fired from the New Yorker
And corrected Dorothy Parker's prose
Can you imagine
For those of you who still read: what a snotty remark, I know
Anyway
She makes her living writing things for the Encyclopedia Brittanica
Five cents a word, like last time I saw her she, she
Michael, she, she was doing the flower section in Africa
Delilahs in Africa, yeah
She said: what is the word that will make this thing interesting
We call her Tiny Malice, Dorothy Dean
Oh man, two drinks and she lays you out
I threw a dish at her like filled with cigarettes on Thanksgiving
Just 'cause she was getting ready to say, mm
She wouldn't come to see me if I was dying
Jackie, Jackie Curtis, this was revelations
Remember that play, like, you know players are ridiculous?
Aahh, yes started that whole thing out at Rocky Horror shit
And all that bullshit
Oohh man, don't you know, and I guess you don't, it's not your fault
It's the journalists, those fucking journalists
Why don't we shoot those journalists
You don't need those assholes, why do you let them go in here free?
Why don't you bitch or something, go to another club, yeah
I don't believe you take this shit
Anyway, I will run for office next week
And I wouldn't vote for me on a prayer

I'm not trusted, but Jackie, and I know, she's just speeding away
Thought like me, hey I'm Jimmy Dean for a day, what, what
But you know that she had to crash
And some Valium had helped that bash
What do I use now Dilaudid, right, ten grams for a headache
Eight, eight dollars in Ohio, right, here it is like fifty-five
Unless you go to Chinatown, they bite your nose off
Hey, you need something for pain?

And then the colored girls, they walk over, guess what they said
Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Wait, baby
I was gone tell you how I came to write a song
Called 'Walk on the Wild Side'
I did not think of it myself
Right, that's how I got on this one
I had walked out
Just when I made an album called Loaded For Loaded
Yeah, that's right
Because I saw it coming
And said oh-oh, get lost, so I walked, right
Because we were gonna be very successful
And there could be money there and
These are my rounds
So I became a typist for my old man
Forty dollars a week, he says stupid
I said yeah, but I never said I was smart
I don't want the company man, you know
I have had two jobs, one's with a guy in Jones Beach
You know the stick with the pin
Lasted one day, a guy threw an orange peel down here in the trash
I say you gotta be kiddin' man, I got a stick with a pin in it
So he put me in the pool area, the guy who walks around
When you put your stuff, like in the fucking chair
And they say:
If you leave and don't take your stuff with you, we throw it in the water
That was an afternoon
I said: what do you say, can't you read the sign? I was one of them
Wow, that was
I was shocked
I was appalled
I WAS TAKEN ABACK!
AND THEN HE SAW!
So, the guys who did the threepenny opera, this is all true
Call me up, of all things they say:
We think you are a very literate rock 'n roll person
And after Ray Davies
We think that you are the person that could take Nelson Algren's
Book Walk On The Wild Side
And do like a musical thing for all of Broadway
I said, I said, you gotta be kiddin'
It's about cripples in the ghetto!
Man, what are you, out of your mind?
They said: oh but, you know--
Very serious intense forty-ish hippies, like gray hair
Park Avenue Apartments--
I'm a fucking typist at this point
You gotta understand man
People saying: oh Lou you're so-
These assholes wanna treat me for a book that's about cripples?
I'm the best-qualified person to write a book
About cripples in music?
Kill yourself, man, that's better than being a garage mechanic, I think
As long as I keep thinking that, you know, and why, what's the truth
I keep saying the genie will appear and say "Hey Schmuck!" It was really groovy all the time being that garage mechanic out in Icelight
And I would say, oh wow
Why didn't you tap me on the shoulder
Because you wouldn't listen
Fair enough
So they give, they
They say go buy a paperback version
And they didn't even give me a version
I said, "Is it abridged?"
Oh, the movie with Jane Fonda
They said then: now you got it
I like to look at Jane Fonda, don't wanna hear her
Now I don't even want to look at her, you know
I don't like the sensitive lesbian pictures
Look, I, I don't relate, you know, backward I don't relate
And facing front is hopeless
So I read this fucking book, and I
They said:
Will you make an X where you think the song should go, haha
The cripple goes to the bathroom, oh, oh yeah, cripple cripple
I, I got jammed for a few times, I had nothing to say to them
So then it became a challenge, so I figured
Why don't I write the theme song for Walk On The Wild Side
I call it Walk On The Wild Side, that's smart
So I had a great time with nothing to write about
This stupid fucking book, man
Everybody says the guy is brilliant, I said: he's from Chicago
Saul Bellow, oh
So anyway, then they got Mahogony, that, that play that flopped
Diana Ross getting
Diana Ross, by the way, is great, as a person
She hasn't any good record at the time
Love Hangover is not
She says [?] that's more than you do
So anyway, I had a great title
And nothing else, and then they fired me
I mean they did it really gently
They let me down easily and they said
Lou, man, we've got a chance to produce Mahogany on Broadway
I said: oh wow, am I crushed
Ha, break a leg, I read that book, go get them, man, look
Advance the theatre, haha
Bruce, you got to believe me, man, these, these people exist
Till the play bombed
Because assholes like Robert Christgau said it was terrible
And in this case it was
And I wouldn't go in the first place
But there I was writing the song for these assholes
Anyway, so then, I had a great time writing, I figured
I will save this title for the day I decided to solve the world
New York, so I did them