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 inventive and industrial success, his mercurial persona and self-destructive habits made him look much less like a rock star and extra like an odd asshole: somebody who had gotten what a era of musicians dreamed of and traded it for what hundreds of thousands of dumb, violent addicts couldn’t escape.
After which he dropped The Blue Masks. It sounded completely different from something he had finished earlier than however was unmistakably him—the quote-unquote actual Lou Reed everybody acknowledged however nobody might duplicate, a sound that was directly new and a return to type. 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 sincere, ugly in locations and exquisite in others: in different phrases, a redemption story. No matter Reed had misplaced over that final decade, artistically, he obtained it again.
What modified? For one factor, he dramatically diminished his consumption of medicine and alcohol, though as with many addicts who get clear underneath their very own supervision, how shut he obtained to zero BAC shouldn’t be clear. He additionally married Sylvia Morales, a youthful painter and poet whom he met at CBGB in 1977. Largely leaving New York Metropolis—Reed saved his rent-stabilized house 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, not less than on a literal degree, 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 understand Reed was getting sober. Taking inventory, he sings that he’s obtained “a fortunate life/My writing, my motorbike, and my spouse/And to high 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 understanding that he was remembered as a determine of comparable significance to Reed’s motorbike. However as with nearly each monitor on this album, the true topic of “My Home” shouldn’t be the home or its appurtenances; it’s Reed’s ongoing battle to stay productively amid the furnishings of his personal thoughts.
These furnishings are previous 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 due to this fact 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 sort of dumb to undoubtedly dumb and due to this fact nice.