Lou Reed - Words & Music (May 1965)

“... Around the time [ Elise] Cowen was being driven out of New York, across the city on Long Island, a teenage Lou Reed was seeking refuge (’despite all the computations…’) in the doo-wop, R&B and rock & roll he heard on the radio, singing and playing along on a cheap guitar he’d had since he was nine. They were similar in ways, Cowen and Reed – young, hungry intellectuals from well-off Jewish backgrounds, socially awkward, bisexual, adventurous in terms of hedonistic pleasures and transgressive culture, and both facing immense familial and societal pressure to conform. There were significant differences, of course, with the Beat poet Gregory Corso later pointing out, ‘In the 50s, if you were male, you could be a rebel, but if you were female, your families had you locked up.’ ...”

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