“Follow the dotted line,” Lou Reed grumbled at me in 2004. “Look, put all the songs together and it’s certainly an autobiography – just not necessarily mine. I write about other people, tell stories, always did. Any truly creative person could make five albums a year, easily. Each record is just what you did that week. Another week you might have done the same songs differently. But listen – I love every last one of them. Every single second of every last one, okay?”
Okay. Fortunately for him, and for us, in late 1972 what he did that week beat most people’s year. Transformer remains a remarkable arranged marriage of gritty, witty words and pop succour. It anointed him the godfather of anti-stars, opening up a career that may otherwise have swiftly gone the way of all flesh.
