All that is to say that shortly earlier than he turned 40, Reed had established himself as one of many saddest burnouts of all time. Within the absence of creative and industrial success, his mercurial persona and self-destructive habits made him look much less like a rock star and extra like an strange asshole: somebody who had gotten what a technology of musicians dreamed of and traded it for what thousands and thousands of dumb, violent addicts couldn’t escape.
After which he dropped The Blue Masks. It sounded completely different from something he had carried out earlier than however was unmistakably him—the quote-unquote actual Lou Reed everybody acknowledged however nobody may duplicate, a sound that was directly new and a return to kind. The primary time I heard it, I assumed The Blue Masks was ironic; the second time, I started to suspect that it was the least ironic album of all time. It’s unusual, particular, and painfully trustworthy, ugly in locations and exquisite in others: in different phrases, a redemption story. No matter Reed had misplaced over that final decade, artistically, he acquired it again.
What modified? For one factor, he dramatically diminished his consumption of medication and alcohol, though as with many addicts who get clear underneath their very own supervision, how shut he acquired to zero BAC shouldn’t be clear. He additionally married Sylvia Morales, a youthful painter and poet whom he met at CBGB in 1977. Principally leaving New York Metropolis—Reed stored his rent-stabilized condominium within the Village—the 2 lived collectively in Blairstown, New Jersey, in a home within the woods close to a lake.
The primary monitor of The Blue Masks, “My Home,” is, no less than on a literal stage, about Reed’s perception that this house in Blairstown shouldn’t be solely “very lovely at evening” but in addition haunted by the spirit of his former faculty professor, the poet Delmore Schwartz. This concept is astonishingly self-centered, which is how you already know Reed was getting sober. Taking inventory, he sings that he’s acquired “a fortunate life/My writing, my bike, and my spouse/And to prime all of it off, a spirit of pure poetry/Resides on this stone and wooden home with me.” One can solely think about how thrilled Schwartz can be figuring out that he was remembered as a determine of comparable significance to Reed’s bike. However as with nearly each monitor on this album, the actual topic of “My Home” shouldn’t be the home or its appurtenances; it’s Reed’s ongoing battle to dwell productively amid the furnishings of his personal thoughts.
These furnishings are outdated however unfamiliar, as if Reed had woke up from a blackout and was taking a look at them for the primary time—which, in lots of respects, he was. The alternately healthful and agonizing expertise of seeing himself clearly is the central theme of The Blue Masks, and it’s mirrored within the alternately lovely and grotesque sound of the instrumentation. These preparations are much more expressive than the phrases, if solely as a result of they convey feeling unconstrained by that means or circumstance and subsequently parallel Reed’s dislocating new sobriety. The singular sound of The Blue Masks supplies a counterpoint to Reed’s lyrics, nudging them over the road from type of dumb to undoubtedly dumb and subsequently nice.