THE SUNDAY DICTIONARY / That's what he said- Lou Reed

 Lou Reed never wanted to answer any personal questions by the media, everything he wanted to say was already contained within his music.
And music is what he offered to talk about.⁣
He once called journalists “the lowest form of life” and had little tolerance for ‘dumb questions or lazy subjects’- as illustrated by the following interview snippets from 1974 and 1975.

Photography by Mick Rock
Video: Lou Reed in Australia, 1974

Photography by Dustin Pittman
Video: Lou Reed in Australia, 1975

However, in the last interview he ever gave, a conversation with director Farida Khelfa a mere month before his passing, he opened up about what sound meant to him.:

Photograph by Grant Cornett
Video: Lou Reed interviewed by Farida Khelfa for Parrot, 2013.

“I’m very emotionally affected by sound. 
Sounds are the inexplicable.[…]
Sound is like light, what is light?
Or what is sound?
Sound is more than just noise and ordered sound is music.
My life is music.
The first memory of sounds would have to be your mother’s heartbeat, for all of us.[…]
You grow up, from when you’re a peanut, listening to rhythm.[…]
But then there are nature sounds…
The sound of the wind.
The sound of Love…”

Thank you Lou Reed- for doing what you loved, for making me forget myself and for being someone good.⁣

sound /saʊnd/
1. Vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard when they reach a person's or animal's ear.⁣
2. Sound produced by continuous and regular vibrations, as opposed to noise.⁣

⁣xez

THE SUNDAY DICTIONARY / That's what he said- Adam "MCA" Yauch

When the Beastie Boys released the third single from their 1994 album Ill Communication “Sure Shot”- Adam MCA Yauch explicitly rapped away from sexist behavior of their past and straight into our feminist hearts:⁣

“I’m gonna say a little something that’s long overdue
The disrespect of women has got to be through
To all our mothers and our sisters and our wives and friends
I want to offer my love and respect to the end”

By including this verse, the Beasties not only became men, they turned into allies and humans that grow and learn.⁣
It made me feel warm and excited.⁣

In a Tricycle interview from the same year, Yauch further explained:
”It’s just seeing things from a different perspective.
There was a time when we would joke around and say things that were disrespectful of women and think that it was funny, or that it wouldn’t hurt anybody, or that it would be taken with a grain of salt.
Then it became clear that that wasn’t the case, and we had to go through the process of taking a step back and realizing how those things affect other people.”

It wasn’t just words that the Beastie Boys shared, they continually went on to fight for rights..women’s rights, LGBT+ rights, human rights, both in their songs and in their public appearances.⁣

Thumbnail photograph: Beastie Boys in Los Angeles, 1998 by Danny Clinch

Overdue /əʊvəˈdjuː/
1. Not having arrived, happened, or been done by the expected time.
2. Having been needed for some time.

xez

THE SUNDAY DICTIONARY / That's what he said- Tom Waits reads Charles Bukowski

In 2008, Tom Waits read the poem “The Laughing Heart”, by Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 - March 9, 1994).

It feels to me as if Waits‘ voice takes Bukowski‘s words and helps them up, like a drunk back on their feet after a hard fall on a damp, dark street.⁣
Then, together they look up, to notice the moon.
”That’s a beauty, yeah..”.

THE LAUGHING HEART
by Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Marvelous /mɑːv(ə)ləs/
1. Causing great wonder; extraordinary.
2. Extremely good or pleasing; splendid.

xez