Every problem, difficulty or complexity that could present itself in a songwriting situation did, and the job became something like a laboratory for Reed’s more serious songwriting. Pickwick, located in Long Island City, a section of Queens not far from Manhattan, was something like a songwriting emergency room. Suddenly, he had something like an outlet, albeit the most low-rent one possible.Īn Image of Lou Reed in His Young Folkie Days While Reed wasn’t the most accomplished musician, he had ranging tastes and an ear – and deep fondness – for pop music. If they sold even a few thousand copies, the profits were considerable. These albums, sold in five-and-ten-cent stores and down-market department stores, were inexpensive to produce. Musicians, including Reed, would be assembled to record the songs, and albums would be printed up with covers and completely made-up band names designed to trick young record buyers into believing they were getting songs by established groups. “They would put us in a room and say, ‘Write ten California songs, ten Detroit songs,'” depending on what was happening at the moment, Reed recalled. In those days, fly-by-night record companies would jump on any trend – a dance craze, a musical style that would catch fire on the radio like surf music or teen-tragedy ballads – and cash in on them. Most notably, however, Reed took a songwriting job with Pickwick Records, a budget label whose factory-style work-for-hire ethos made the sweat-equity, no-nonsense hit-making of the Brill Building seem like Mount Olympus. However, because of his emotional and psychological problems, he received a 1-Y classification, meaning that he would only be drafted in case of a national emergency or an outbreak of war, which, technically, did not apply to Vietnam because Congress never officially declared war. What happened to the original drugs is another story.” The Vietnam War was beginning to escalate and now that he was out of college, Reed lost his student deferment. This led to hours of feigned stonedness with those more gullible than I, watching carefully to make sure they didn’t OD on sweets. Reed later wrote about this period: “Much of my income came from selling envelopes of sugar to girls I met at clubs, claiming it was heroin. He said that he couldn’t resist exploring that world, walking right up to the edges of it, and, occasionally, toppling into it. He talked about Park Avenue johns willing to pay hundreds of dollars to watch couples have sex. He also mentioned his attraction to the city’s sexual underground, though he described those interests as deriving from a personal weakness. Primarily, he was trying to get his music career off the ground. He wrote to Delmore Schwartz, a renowed poet and Reed’s mentor at Syracuse, and explained that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go back to school for creative writing. I had to take Biology and Botany, but Lou made a deal with the dean, so he only had to take one required science course, and he copied my notes for that one.”Īfter graduating, Reed returned home to his parents’ house on Long Island and promptly succumbed to a hepatitis attack that sidelined him for two months.
“Lou waited until senior year to take these nasty required courses,” his friend Erin Clermont said. “And he made sure he took classes, especially as a senior, that you couldn’t fail unless you never showed up.” Reed deftly negotiated his course requirements so that he wouldn’t have to take too many courses he didn’t like. He went to class and he was very smart,” his friend Richard Mishkin said. “When all is said and done, there was no reason for Lou not to graduate.
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He pushed the college to the limits of its tolerance, but he also taught himself how to work the system to his advantage. His rebelliousness aside, Reed took care to avoid getting kicked out of school. Along with his generally outrageous behavior and innate desire to shock, Reed displayed a characteristic savvy during his time at SU. Despite what can only be described as a rocky student career at Syracuse University – getting tossed off the student radio station and booted from ROTC, dealing drugs – Lou Reed graduated with honors in June of 1964 with a B.A.
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