Late spring, 1973. I was 21 years old, a recent college dropout, working in the chem lab of a manufacturing plant 35 miles south of my new apartment in southeast Missouri. (I’d only recently moved out of my childhood home, a lil too late. Another story.) I was making enough coin to buy myself a sweet ORANGE Porche 914 the fall before. I got off work around 9 pm, and the weather was perfect. I opened the top to my car, turned on the radio, and headed home. About 10 minutes into my drive up the interstate, this song came on the radio. I was mystified, transfixed, flummoxed, awestruck! I had never heard anything like it. It played, and I drank it in, and I craved that the announcer would PLEASE tell me what that song was, WHO performed it! Nope. (It was common back then for the DJs to read the list of upcoming songs, but they often didn’t repeat it at the end of the set. Idiot bastards.) I had no internet to consult, no music-savvy friends to ask. I was stumped for YEARS while that song taunted me, popping up in my brain now & again. Finally, with the dawn of the interwebs, I was rewarded with its identity. Yeah, since then I’ve probably listened to everything Lou Reed put out there. But this one will always be my favorite. It became mine that night I was flying up the interstate with the wind in my hair and radio speakers at full blast.
