USA under Donald Trump | Lou Reed: Don't be mean

Before Lou Reed rose to fame with The Velvet Underground, he studied English at Syracuse University in New York State in the early 1960s. The poet Delmore Schwartz taught creative writing there. Reed considered him the "smartest, funniest, and saddest person" he had ever met. Schwartz became his teacher and friend, even though he was no longer in the best of health. Wasted from alcohol, pills, and mental health crises, he died in 1966, just as the Velvets were gaining popularity by playing at Andy Warhol's legendary multimedia parties.

A wild time began for Lou Reed. He was the singer, guitarist, and composer of a band that barely sold records, but was later considered one of the most important bands of all time. He declared that they were doing the same thing as the literary figures William S. Burroughs, Hubert Selby, Allen Ginsberg, and Raymond Chandler—"only with guitar and drums." After the Velvets' demise, the music press reacted to Reed's solo albums with a range of elation and despair.

With his second album, "Transformer," produced by David Bowie, he scored a brilliant hit in 1972; the songs are still played today ("Walk on the Wild Side," "Perfect Day," and "Satellite of Love"). With the records he made afterward, he was considered, at best, a bad taste hero, while his lifestyle resembled that of the late Delmore Schwartz. But then, to everyone's surprise, the album "Blue Mask" was released in 1982, the cover of which looked like a negative of "Transformer." Recorded with a small, fine band, this was a masterpiece by an artist who had decided against self-destruction: music as rock 'n' roll literature about fear, alcohol, violence, neuroses, and Delmore Schwartz.

At that time, construction of the "Trump Tower" in New York was in its final stages. At 204 meters high, it was the future president's first megalomaniac project and was inaugurated in 1983. Until then, Donald Trump had primarily made headlines through his flamboyant first wife, Ivana Trump; he himself was too boring, even though he always claimed otherwise. In contrast, Reed states on "Blue Mask": "I'm an average guy trying to stay grounded."

Both were New Yorkers. Reed was 39 at the time, three years older than Trump, who from then on organized all sorts of events to at least make a brand out of his name: wrestling shows, beauty pageants, reality TV, and so on. The fact that he wanted to become president one day was actually just a marketing gimmick.

On "Blue Mask," there's a song in which Reed dreams of being the President of the United States: "I dreamed I would end ignorance, stupidity, and hatred (...) I dreamed I was incorruptible and fair to everyone. I dreamed I wasn't rude and mean or criminal." Above all, he dreams he could forget the day John Kennedy died. Regardless of one's political views, his assassination on November 21, 1963, became the nation's trauma, just as 9/11 later did. Older Americans would ask each other, "Where were you when Kennedy died?"

In the song "The Day John Kennedy Died," Reed describes how he experienced that day: In a bar, football was on TV, and then the screen went black and an announcer said that, according to unconfirmed reports, the president had been shot – "he could be dying or he could already be dead." Then no one in the bar spoke anymore, and Lou Reed ran out into the street, "where people are standing everywhere talking / about what they said on TV."

Lou Reed sings this so sadly and fragilely that it makes you want to cry. The first short story Delmore Schwartz published in 1938 was called "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities." In "The Day John Kennedy Died," Reed sings: "I dreamed I was young and smart and it wouldn't be a waste of time / I dreamed life and humanity had meaning." This is the antithesis of Donald Trump, a secret message from 1982.