A Real Tribute

Listened to Songs For Drella by Lou Reed and John Cale late last night and in the late morning. It's a kind of tribute to Andy Warhol, whom they had come to regard as a kind of mentor I suppose, which they put together just after his death, this being the first time the two ex-Velvet Undergrounders had performed together in years. It both gets inside the perplexing artist and keeps a critical distance, miraculously avoiding anything in the nature of a final judgment - though with plenty of pungent observations along the way. Chockful of idiosyncratic wit, apposite for a supremely idiosyncratic individual. You'd think it would be cold, wouldn't you, yet it's deeply, genuinely emotional. The best sequence of songs about art and what art does I can think of, Sunday In The Park With George not withstanding. I intend to listen again later.