Perhaps even more than other American-Jewish rock stars such as Billy Joel and Bob Dylan, Lou Reed was fiercely proud of being Jewish — and included lyrics on behalf of Israel and against anti-Semitism in some of his songs.
I mention Reed’s Jewishness because not a single obituary I have read of him in the mainstream press mentions it, when for Reed it was an important factor.
Reed, who died yesterday of liver failure at the age of 71, was born Lewis Allan Reed to a Jewish family in Brooklyn. He said that while “he had no god apart from rock ‘n’ roll” his Jewish roots and standing up for Israel meant a lot to him. He was a frequent visitor to the country, last performing in Tel Aviv in 2008, and his aunt and many cousins live in Haifa and other Israeli towns.
Reed even had an Israeli spider named after him to thank him for his support for the country.
His connection to Israel and his distaste for anti-Semitism can be heard in his lyrics from the song “Good Evening Mr. Waldheim” on his 1989 solo album New York:
Good evening Mr. Waldheim [1]
and Pontiff how are you?
You have so much in common
in the things you do
And here comes Jesse Jackson
He talks of Common Ground
Does that Common Ground include me
or is it just a sound
A sound that shakes
Oh Jesse, you must watch the sounds you make
A sound that quakes
There are fears that still reverberate
Jesse you say Common Ground [2]
Does that include the PLO?
What about people right here right now
who fought for you not so long ago? [3]
The words that flow so freely
falling dancing from your lips
I hope that you don’t cheapen them
with a racist slip
Oh Common Ground
Is Common Ground a word or just a sound
Common Ground—remember those civil rights workers buried in the ground
If I ran for president and once was a member of the Klan
Wouldn’t you call me on it
The way I call you on Farrakhan [4]
And Pontiff, pretty Pontiff
Can anyone shake your hand?
Or is it just that you like uniforms
and someone kissing your hand
Or is it true
The Common Ground for me includes you too
Oh is it true the Common Ground for me includes you too
Good evening Mr. Waldheim
Pontiff how are you
As you both stroll through the woods at night
I’m thinking thoughts of you
And Jesse you’re inside my thoughts
As the rhythmic words subside
My Common Ground invites you in
or do you prefer to wait outside
Or is it true
The Common Ground for me is without you
Or is it true
The Common Ground for me is without you
Oh is it true
There’s no Ground Common enough for me and you
For younger readers, just in case you need an explanation as to the events in the 1980s:
[1] This is a reference to Kurt Waldheim, the Nazi SS officer, who went on to become U.N. secretary general, and was then elected president of Austria, even after he was proven to have helped kill tens of thousands of Jews from Greece and elsewhere.
[2] A reference to Jesse Jackson who at the time had made many anti-Semitic remarks including referring to New York as “Hymietown” and appeared to have sympathy for PLO terrorism.
[3] A reference to American Jews who had helped stand up for the civil rights of African Americans (and in some cases been killed for doing so).
[4] Louis Farrakhan is the notoriously anti-Semitic leader of the so-called Nation of Islam.
You can listen here to Lou Reed’s “Good Evening Mr. Waldheim”:
You can listen to my favorite Lou Reed track, “Walk on the Wild Side,” here:
In his book The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s: A Secret History of Jewish Punk, Steven Lee Beeber argued that there was a key Jewish element to the New York punk-rock movement that Reed was central to; other Jewish-born artists included Joey and Tommy Ramone, Patti Smith’s guitarist Lenny Kaye, Richard Hell, Jonathan Richman, and Blondie’s guitarist Chris Stein — not to mention Malcolm McLaren (who was fully Jewish but whose family changed their name to escape anti-Semitism) and who created the Sex Pistols.
Saul Austerlitz in a review of the book wrote, “The new punk Jew was inspired in equal parts by the warriors of the Israel Defense Forces, the comic-book superheroes scripted by an earlier generation of Jewish artists, and an instinctive revulsion at the musical excesses of contemporaries.”