A Walk on the Wild Side

 
What was Lou Reed on about in his seventies hit 'Walk on the Wild Side'? On the surface it sounded like an anthem for transgression, but it could also be read as an invitation to explore the darker corners of the modern urban mindset. Perhaps influenced by advertising into believing that art contains explicit messages, some even thought that the song was celebrating deviance or at the very least promoting hedonism. Society often attributes to art strange powers that it doesn't actually have while at the same time ignoring its deeper connotations. It's a poet's job to observe and point out certain facets of life but he does not necessarily participate directly in their dynamics. He is not responsible for how his work affects the listeners' minds nor how it is interpreted. Stanley Kubrick's withdrawing of the film 'The Clockwork Orange' was seen in some quarters as an admission that his film had led certain people to violent acts. This could not have been true. It was much more likely that he simply resented being used as an excuse. In terms of dramaturgy the film is essentially a farce but to see it that way one has to believe that humanity has the strength to stand above its own absurdities. Lou Reed was observing what was happening to people around him and stating what he saw. There was no need for alarm, or was there?

Modern cities are no doubt choking in their own artificiality. The need to balance the practical and affective aspects of life is crushed by the demands of the technocratic society. This creates tensions that crave release. These tensions are mirrored in the way modern cities delineate by zones, the droll politeness of business dealings of the day from the sleaziness of exotic pleasures by night. For the simpler sorts good cooking and wines might be stimuli enough for one evening and they probably brush their teeth before going to bed. For some others the night's tentacles draw them into the thin borderline zones between sensuality and sordidness. According to Lou Reed, the extremity (the wild side) is where compulsive desires are laid bare and acted upon. If his dead-pan style of delivery is a gesture of a poet's objectivity, perhaps the exhibits he describes are intended as metaphors for humanity itself, confused and aimless, slowly expiating its life energies in small drips of unredeemed gratifications. We are more used to the idea of armageddon being a sudden quick ending but what if it happens to be a gradual imperceptible process of decay? Apart from interpreting Lou Reed's words and music as a veiled warning, it must also be said that the wild side continues to exist because evidently it is economically viable.
 

Rome, 12 12 2004