Waiting for the Man: The Life and Career of Lou Reed

“All the books about me are bullshit except Jeremy’s.” ―Lou Reed

“All the books about me are bullshit except Jeremy’s.” ―Lou Reed

Lou Reed influenced generations of copyists that took note of his outlaw status, ambiguous sexual orientation characterized by his seventies relationship with the transvestite Rachel, his implacable mystique, and his cool and defiant attitude as the narrator of subcultures.

First published in Britain in 1994 and now available for the first time in America, Waiting for the Man, focuses on Lou Reed as rock’s principal literary avatar, paying special attention to his controversial lyrics and prototypical garage sound. Author Jeremy Reed (no relation) is a fellow poet― one praised by J. G. Ballard as “the most original poet writing today” and by Bjork as “the most beautiful outrageous poet in the world”―and thus he examines Lou Reed’s career through an entirely different lens than other rock biographies. Taking in the sweep of Reed’s career from Velvet Underground to the variants of forty years of resistant solo pioneering, Waiting For the Man accesses the man and his music, with an extraordinary perception and attention to detail.