Upon Some, Greatness Is Thrust - Part 2: The Song Show

The Greatest Song of All Time:


Lou Reed- I Wanna Be Black - Street Hassle

The Artists featured in Part 1 of this feature wrote some of the Greatest Songs of All Time, of course, but what distinguishes them most is their entire body of work, the epic sweep of their careers and their undeniable status as icons of all that is truly great in music. However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that none of them can be credited w/ The Greatest Song of All Time.

Musical talent takes different forms. Some artists, ‘tho they are not have that kinda stature, get lucky enough to just write a great song once in a while. Some even have a system & are able churn the things out—be they dumb as a bunny—like Mozart is in Amadeus—or as soulless as a .357 Magnum left lyin’ in a snow drift. Or both.

Wow. There are a lotta good songs out there, aren’t there? That’s why I’m not gonna bother w/ a list. We’d be here all day. Besides, there’s really no need. My choice goes far beyond any other in the force of its performance and in particular, in its wealth of spirit. It also bears the mark of its maker: that unmistakable character. Lou Reed.

Once he got over the whole trying to make music that was any good or relevant or worth listening to—mostly right around the time the 3rd VU record came out, ‘tho he had momentary spasms of humanity thereafter—ol’ Lou made a whole career outta not carin’ nor tryin’ to play music, nor to craft those characters you grew to love in his early lyrics. Instead, he decided to try something really cool, while makin’ sure you knew he was doin’ it: loafing around in some rock star placenta, gobblin’ pills, bein’ a drunk, putting on five hundred pounds than suddenly losin’ ‘em, sayin’ he was gay, then sayin’ he was straight then sayin’ he wasn’t Jewish, than sayin’ he was & that it was an integral part of him as a human being. He also said he felt deeply indebted to black music & black culture, & noted how both had influenced his toonz.

Thus “I Wanna Be Black.” It’s a real funny satire of white college kidz, Lou explained, when pressed. Otherwise, he’s avoided talkin’ about the thing, & in a rare act of apparent insecurity he yanked it from an original record, Sally Can't Dance, and a subsequent box set called Beyond Thought & Expression—in both cases, right before it the recordings were released. It later showed up in several different places, including another collection of Greatest Hits—where it totally belonged from the get-go.

I like this song for a few reasons. The band sounds like they’re drunk playing it. Lou sounds like he’s on speed. (Prob. was—that was one of his things around then, if it isn’t still now.) The crowd sounds like they’re drunk, on speed and prob. can’t hear anything, which is prob. just as well, ‘cuz I don’t believe that middle brow people like them were ready of the Grand Artistry of this song, either in the avant garde sorta (out of tune, out of rhythm, etc.) way the band played it or in the gently ironic bent of its lyrics. Ol’ deadpan Lou. Some people just don’t get him.

I do, which is why the thing I like most of all is its lyrics. Let’s explore some excerpts, so we can all appreciate the scalpel of his wit:

“I wanna be black, have natural rhythm / Shoot 20 foot of jism too/ And fuck up the Jews…”

These lines open the song, & in them, Lou establishes all of the most important ideas he will wrestle w/ throughout the song. One bears mentioning right away: a grotesque perception of African American sexuality. To whom do these ideas belong? Ralph Ellison & Malcolm X—2 of the greatest black minds (some might say 2 of the greatest minds period) of the post WWII era both write of their encounters w/ white peoples’ fiercely unhealthy coveting of African American eroticism—and in particular how it arises from unclear visualizations of black physiology. I think that’s what Lou is hitting on here & in other bizarre sexual images that’ll follow. I think he’s tryin’ to capture that Caucasian view of titillating alienism that defiles African Americans. I guess. I don’t really know. I’m followin’ Lou’s direction here. I must be really, really repressed, ‘cuz I can’t remember ever seeing a black guy emit 20 feet of semen—or is he emitting a smaller amount—say, a regular wad—that shoots through the air for 20 feet like a soft line drive hit by Cubs second baseman Mike Fontenot? (What he imagines when he contemplates 1st baseman Derrek Lee is best left to the imagination—or not even that—but I’m guessing it would do w/ which kinda streak Derrek was following at that point—dramatic hitter that he is.) If Lou sez I think that ‘tho, I must, altho’ maybe I’m not the 1 thinkin’ it. As I said above, whose perspective shelters an image like this?

I also think Lou is pointing toward the ludicrousness of these sexual myths in an effort to diminish the harm they have done to white men. Lou wants to assert that it is very unlikely that anyone can shoot jism that far, because he can’t, and he’s not inferior to black men, physically, in any other way, including penile endowment. He—and every other male of non-African extraction—need not be insecure. We have just as much to offer as any other man—except maybe for Lou & John Holmes.


Further along Lou’s cultural excursion, is a pivotal moment that may provide some explanation. Maybe:

“…I don’t wanna be a fucked up / Middle class college student anymore/ I just wanna have a stable of foxy little whores…”

The juxtaposition of this college student w/ blaxploitation imagery demonstrates the absurdity of Afro-philism. On the other end of the moral scale, look how these romanticized images play out in the sermonizing of losers like Bono. The sanctimonious light we view men like MLK in distorts what we see:

“I wanna be black, wanna be like Martin Luther King/ And get myself shot in spring/ And lead a whole generation too/And fuck up the Jews…”

White people have long scrutinized Anti-Semitism in the African American community. Notes have been taken, files filled. Lou understands these things, which is good, ‘cuz I need him to lead the way, to help me out of this, uh, darkness so I can better see something that I mostly don’t see: how obsessively black people hate Jews.

Coupla things I have trouble w/: Before college, I spent most of my school years in classes where a large portion of my classmates—sometimes the majority—were African American. I do not remember a single time—not once—when any uttered an anti-Semitic slur or even referenced Jewish people, except when germane issues came up in History or Social Science courses. I went to school w/ the same kids through most of that time. There were 2 Jewish students, both female, who were allowed out of school for the Jewish holidays. About the only time anyone expressed anything about a specific person’s Jewishness was to wish he/she was Jewish and therefore also be freed from school.

Another thing that happened in high school: for a homework assignment, I read this magazine article that I have remembered—shakily—ever since. It was called “Blacks & Jews: The Epic War” or some such shit, and it focused on misunderstandings between these two American communities. In particular, it focused in Chicago. A poll was conducted for the article on the South Side of the city. Much of the South Side is overwhelmingly black, and traditionally, income levels have been low. If I remember right, the majority of those polled didn’t understand what it meant to be Jewish. An even larger group said that they had never met a Jewish person before.

So Nation of Islam aside, (up until recently, Farrakhan lived here,) who I think represent a very small cross-section, it seems to me that the anti-Semitism of black people in America has been overestimated. Well, I mean, that’s what I thought until I heard Lou’s song. I’m still struggling w/ that point, as I said, & feel that it could be clarified, but maybe Lou feels that he shouldn’t spoon-feed you. Maybe he has too much respect for his audience. I mean, for an example of that respect, just look at this song.

Here are more lyrical excerpts:

“…I wanna be like Malcolm X/ And cast a hex…”

Brilliant moment of staccato rhyming!

“Over President Kennedy’s tomb/ And have a big prick too…”

I left out a part earlier in which Lou applies the image of a panther to African American identity. ‘Tho it’s not stated outright, it seems pretty likely that he was invoking the Black Panther Party. In this way then, particularly when the disturbing image of Malcolm X raining down voodoo on JFK’s grave—well, that’s something far more manifest than chickens coming home to roost. Lou has done nothing more—nor less—here than to recapitulate decades of black politics, as they shifted away from the civil rights strategies of MLK through Malcolm X’s black nationalism to the terminal radicalism of the panthers. And he accomplishes all of this in the space of 30 seconds!

These are just some high points, capturing the bulk of the song. I have not, for instance, presented the interminable close of the song that repeats “Yeah yeah yeah I wanna be black…” more than 10 times! Way to bring the point home to the Slow Joe in the 5th Row! What tenacity!

Now remember… if this song makes you mad… this is satire. That means that everything Lou says here isn’t offensive, even if it offends you. Lou’s not afraid to takes chances say some things that might offend other people. They don’t offend him, but that’s another matter. He’s not here to offend himself; he’s here to offend you. Or someone like you. Anyone who’s reactionary enough to not find it funny or smart when someone ridicules his or her personal pain for no esp. good reason. That’s quite an artistic achievement on Lou’s part.

See, satire is predicated on the idea that you take something that is real and illustrate how ridiculous it is by acting it out. So if someone, say, does a standup routine for the parents of a child whose been murdered by a pedophile, and the comedian decides to make all his jokes about raping and murdering children, that’s OK. It’s satire.

And so what is Lou satirizing here? Racism? Welp, it’s said that he meant to make fun of white college kids who wanted to be black due to distorted images they harbored. I think he’s done a very incisive job of getting’ down there & wrestlin’ w/ that topic. Except for maybe onnnneee lil’ fault—which shouldn’t be damning—every diamond has its flaws, & besides, I’m not Lou, & so could be wrong. My small criticism centers on the fact that most successful satires offer some sort of line that distinguishes the real from the Loudicrous. While that line is prob. here, I’m having some trouble finding it. I’m not saying that I’m letting the matter go. I’ll keep looking for that line, all the while maintaining my faith that Lou knows what he’s talking about, even if I don’t.


I think it’s pretty clear that Lou has done something unprecedented here: He has take “the race problem,” something which has destabilized America for centuries--not to mention the degree to which it’s plagued the larger world—and he has utterly clarified, so that we can all finally understand one another. It’s good to put pesky misunderstandings like the triangle trade and the middle passage in perspective in such a visionary manner, & if I were black, I know that I would be incredibly grateful to Lou Reed and would apologize for all the naughty anti-Semitic thoughts that I, like every other person of African descent, harbor in my nappy lil’ head. Thanks Lou!

Just like Jesse Jackson oughta. Lou sure showed him—he paid back Jess’s anti-Semitic remarks w/ what appears to be an entire song that acts out bigotry against African Americans, but that in reality does something more constructive. Sadly, Jesse didn’t seem to notice Lou’s attempt to establish a dialogue in the song “Good Evening, Mr. Waldheim.” His past comments on African American culture just made the tantrums he directed at Jesse even sillier & therefore a lot more fun.



Honorable Mention in the Best Song of All Time Competition:

Public Enemy – “Welcome to the Terrordome” (Fear of a Black Planet)

(As scrutinized in the last entry, "An Intentional Wreck.")

Chosen for more less the same reasons as “I Wanna Be Black,” but in reverse. One difference here is that the music is actually dynamic and alive—however paranoid. I used to defend some of the lyrics in this song, because I loved PE so much. I was wrong.





NEXT: The Greatest Album of All Time!!!!!!!!!!!!! What will it be?????????? Just you wait!!!