Berlin |
|
Released: October 5, 1973 Peak: 98 US, 7 UK, 51 CN, 59 AU, 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.06 UK Genre: rock |
Tracks:Click on a song title for more details.
Total Running Time: 49:23 The Players:
|
Rating: 4.038 out of 5.00 (average of 23 ratings)
Quotable:“The most ambitious album of his career” – Mark Deming, All Music GuideAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
|
About the Album“Transformer and ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ were both major hits in 1972, to the surprise of both Lou Reed and the music industry, and with Reed suddenly a hot commodity, he used his newly won clout to make the most ambitious album of his career, Berlin.” AM Fans and critics who were “expecting another upbeat glam outing” WK did not respond well to “Reed’s most brutal work to date.” RD While it was a commercial disaster, “its gloomy atmospherics stirred a new generation of musicians. Less than a decade later, Joy Division’s Ian Curtis would be praised for creating the sort of dark imagery that had left Reed critically crucified.” RD Reed was disillusioned enough about the album’s reception that for years he rarely played any of the material live. WKThe album is “the musical equivalent of a drug-addled kid set loose in a candy store.” AM Assisted by producer “Bob Ezrin at his most grandiose,” AM Reed crafts an album very different from the bulk of his work, fleshing out Berlin “with a huge, boomy production…and arrangements overloaded with guitars, keyboards, horns, strings, and any other kitchen sink that was handy.” AM He also assembled top flight session musicians including Jack Bruce, Steve Winwood, Aynsley Dunbar, and Tony Levin. “Instrumentally, Reed himself only contributes acoustic guitar,” WK which made for quite a change from the “superb use of the two-guitars/bass/drums lineup with the Velvet Underground.” AM Thematically, Reed was more adventurous as well. While he has “often been accused of focusing on the dark side of life, he and Ezrin approached Berlin as their opportunity to make The Most Depressing Album of All Time, and they hardly missed a trick.” AM Reed uses the songs to “form a loose story line about a doomed romance between two chemically fueled bohemians.” AM “The album chronicles the demise of a relationship between two Americans, Caroline and Jim, living in the divided German city.” RD As is often the case with concept albums, “a few of the songs are little more than sketches” AM but the highlights…are powerful, bitter stuff.” AM “The songs weave through infidelity (‘Caroline Says I’), drug abuse (‘How Do You Think It Feels’), and violence (‘Caroline Says II’), ending with Caroline’s suicide (‘The Bed’). Chillingly, Jim refuses to mourn his girlfriend’s death, and ‘Sad Song’ closes with the unsettling couplet, ‘I’m gonna stop wastin’ my time / Somebody else would have broken both her arms.’” RD The final assessment is that “it’s hard not to be impressed by Berlin, given the sheer scope of the project, but while it earns an A for effort, the actual execution merits more of a B-.” AM “The sheer size of Berlin ultimately overpowers both Reed and his material.” AM “But if Berlin is largely a failure of ambition, that sets it apart from the vast majority of Reed’s lesser works; Lou’s vocals are both precise and impassioned.” AM NotesIn 2006, a live performance of the full album was captured and turned into a concert film and live album (Berlin: Live at St Ann’s Warehouse).The SongsSome of these songs originated as Velvet Underground songs (“Caroline Says II” as “Stephanie Says,” “Oh, Jim” as “Oh Gin,” “Sad Song”) and one (“Berlin”) was originally recorded by Reed for his first solo album. The other seven songs from this album are detailed below. |
Lady DayLou Reed |
Writer(s): Lou Reed Released: Berlin (1973), Retro (compilation: 1989), Legendary (box set: 2002) Peak: 30 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.93 streaming About the Song:“This song, ostensibly an ode to Billie Holiday, the original ‘Lady Day,’ seems out of place among the components of the story behind the album.” ER-29 “Is this the true Lady Day of jazz legend herself, or is this Caroline, without Jim, reveling in a moment of risky liberation only to return to the now changing and suppressive mundanity of their union?” ER-30Steve “Winwood’s lurking Hammond organ chords, the listener is told of a woman who passed by a bar and ‘…had to go in and sing.’” ER-29 “The track’s musical arrangement stands out for its complexity in odd ways.” ER-30 |
Men of Good FortuneLou Reed |
Writer(s): Lou Reed Released: Berlin (1973), Perfect Day (compilation: 1997), The Very Best of (compilation: 2000), Legendary (box set: 2002) Peak: 24 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.91 streaming About the Song:The Velvet Underground played Men of Good Fortune as early as 1966 WK but Reed’s version for Berlin is the first official recording and release of the song.The place of “this study of paternal dichotomy” ER-30 “within the narrative of Jim and Caroline is unclear; is Jim painfully studying his own origin with spiteful regret, or is this song much closer to home for its author?”< sup>ER-30 “A great deal of Lou’s lyrics…has centered around the concept of the ‘father wound;’ the inevitable friction and emotional upheaval that will…occur between father and son.” ER-30 Lou explores “a father’s or whole family’s disappointment in their son, and the heavy toll this takes.” ER-30 “Jack Bruce first makes his presence known on the LP with uncharacteristically restrained, yet still melodically busy and tonally fuzzy bass guitar.” ER-30 |
 |
Caroline Says ILou Reed |
Writer(s): Lou Reed Recorded: June 25 – July 29, 1973, at Morgan Studios in London and the Record Plant in New York Released: February 1974 (single), Berlin (1973), Between Thought and Expression (box set, 1992), Different Times: Lou Reed in the ‘70s (compilation: 1996), A Retrospective (compilation, 1998), Legendary (box set: 2002) Peak: 44 CL, 38 CO, 7 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.37 streaming About the Song:“Lou had a list of women who ‘said’ in his songs: Stephanie, Candy, Lisa, and now Caroline. It’s a neat literary trick that allows the singer or narrator to respond to another character’s impressions with their own first-person ideas. Here, Jim is lamenting Caroline’s many barbed tongue skewerings of his masculinity.” ER-31 “He believed that these storms could by duly weathered. Now, he is not so sure, but he will not throw in the towel.” ER-31“Lou adds some real muscle to his vocals” ER-30 and “the orchestral flourishes and choral chords that uplift and round out the song to its conclusion add to its emotional fiber accordingly.” ER-31 |
 |
How Do You Think It FeelsLou Reed |
Writer(s): Lou Reed Recorded: June 25 – July 29, 1973, at Morgan Studios in London and the Record Plant in New York Released: October 1973 (single), Berlin (1973), Walk on the Wild Side: The Best of (compilation: 1977), Retro (compilation: 1989), Between Thought and Expression (box set, 1992), The Best of Lou Reed & Velvet Underground (compilation: 1995), Legendary (box set: 2002) Peak: 45 CL, 38 CO, 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 2.27 streaming About the Song:“The album’s only true rock ‘n’ roll song, and it’s a greasy one.” ER-31 This is a “a seedy, slimy speed freak’s lament on all things speed freak.” ER-31 “The listener must ask, is this Jim? Is this Lou? Is this both of them in collage?” ER-31It features “Aynsley Dunbar’s rumbling tom-tom and double bass drum thunder that ups the dramatic quotient just enough for Lou to step right in and attend to business.” ER-31 Then on Steve Hunter’s guitar solo, “he simultaneously honors the vocal melody while also saying something completely unique and vital at the same time.” ER-31 “As the song chugs along, we are treated to fat, balls-out bursts of horns that add a vitamin jolt of Stax/Volt urgency.” ER-31 |
The KidsLou Reed |
Writer(s): Lou Reed Recorded: June 25 – July 29, 1973, at Morgan Studios in London and the Record Plant in New York Released: Berlin (1973), Between Thought and Expression (box set, 1992), NYC Man – The Ultimate Collection (compilation: 2003) Peak: 25 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.23 streaming About the Song:The Kids is “perhaps the most harrowing track on the album, or at the very least, it shares that honor with the next song.” ER-33 “Lou’s closely-mic’d voice casually utters a tale of a woman whose daughters have been taken away from her by the authorities.” ER-33 “Various one-line examples of this woman’s sexual promiscuity are lined up and addressed, as well as drug use, compounded by the fact that this woman had no compunction regarding the appropriate time or place for such interludes.” ER-33-4The song “features the sounds of children shouting for their mother.” WK “Although deeply unsettling, [it] is a true masterstroke in effectiveness.” ER-34 “Oft-recycled rumor states that these are in fact Bob Ezrin’s children, who were brought to the studio and somewhat sketchily coaxed into their performance by being told that they would never see their mother again.” ER-34 “Musically, the song is excellent.” ER-34 “This largely acoustic number, strummed rhythm guitars and acoustic slide, joined by bass and drums, is despite its gentle instrumentation.” ER-33 “The opening strumming guitar sets up a rhythm that is shambling yet sure, ragged but right. Procol Harum’s BJ Wilson is on drums here, and his work is exemplary.” ER-34 |
The BedLou Reed |
Writer(s): Lou Reed Released: Berlin (1973) Peak: 27 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.91 streaming About the Song:“The pathos is unrelenting as we move from tragedy to tragedy.” ER-34 “The singer, presumably Jim, faces the ghastly task of assessing the before and after of the bedroom he shared with Caroline in the wake of her suicide. ‘This is the place where she lay her head’ and ‘This is the place where our children were conceived’ serve to record the singer taking grim stock of the history the room holds.” ER-35“This song features yet another acoustic guitar intro, and Ezrin’s production must once again be celebrated here, as the plucked notes just soar and wave n the rich spacious sonic atmosphere that the producer has crafted. When Lou comes in, once again just barely above a whisper, his voices is another color added to the aural panoply.” ER-34 At the end, “the swirling voices and tones suggest perhaps Carolin’s spirit departing or the madness festering inside Jim’s mid at the time. It is a haunting end to a truly haunting song.” ER-35 |
Resources/References:
Related DMDB Pages:
First posted 3/3/2011; last updated 9/10/2026. |
