For those of you who were blissfully unaware, former Velvet Underground frontman and eternally overrated lyricist Lou Reed teamed up with thrash metal legends/lawsuit enthusiasts Metallica to record an album. When I first heard this news, I figured that the resulting music would probably suck, but held out some hope that the collaboration would somehow inspire everyone involved to raise their game and make an album worth listening to…

Later I learned that the album was “inspired by German expressionist writer Frank Wedekind’s plays Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box, which tell the story of a young abused dancer’s life and relationships”, and knew that it was going to suck, but hopefully wouldn’t be a gigantic embarrassment to all involved. Then “The View” was released, and it was the single least enjoyable piece of music I’ve heard all year (Yes, worse than this). The only reason I listened to the entire song was to make sure it didn’t end with Lou Reed saying “Just kidding! We’ll release the real single next week.”

Now the inevitable has happened, and you can listen to Lulu in its entirety on the internet. My original plan was to listen to the whole album and live-blog the experience. Then I realized that this stupid thing is 87 minutes long and scrapped that idea. Instead, I looked at the accompanying lyrics pages and decided to highlight some of the, er, lowlights. What follows are some of Lou Reed’s worst lyrics, in the order they appear on the album.

I dreamt of breezes going through the treeses
And stars were still illumed (Braendenberg Gate)

For those of you keeping track at home, it took about 2 minutes for Lou Reed to resort to a Dr. Seuss homage.

I want to have you doubting
Every meaning you’ve amassed
Like a fortune
Oh throw it away
For worship someone
Who actively despises you (The View)

This is the first and only time I’ll say this, but you really have to listen to “The View” to get the full effect here. Lou Reed is really trying to sell those last couple lines (someone who ACTively desPISes you!). Even though he’s offering a really, really terrible deal, we know that the girl (guy? I have no idea) Lou Reed’s talking to takes him up on it. Why? Because there’s still eight goddamn songs left, three of them longer than 11 minutes.

I am the root
I am the progress
I’m the aggressor
I am the tablet
These ten stories (The View)

Okay, I was lying before. I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to listen to “The View” long enough to hear James Hetfield interrupt Lou Reed’s incoherent rant with an even more incoherent rant of his own. I’m not pulling these lines out of context; they already have no context whatsoever within the song. It sounds like a 13-year-old Hetfield carved these lines into his desk at school and he’s been waiting ever since for an excuse to use them on an album. Actually, the teenager hypothesis would also explain the RAWK riff underlying this section, too…

I will swallow your sharpest cutter
Like a colored man’s dick (Pumping Blood)

Is there some kind trend with old 60’s rock stars saying racist things on their modern material? This has been bugging me ever since I listened to this song off of one of Roger Waters’ solo albums (It’s called Amused to Death, and it’s actually really good. I highly recommend it). Is it supposed to be ironic, or period-appropriate (the plays Lulu’s based on are 100 years old), or what?

“Oh Jack I beseech you”
Supreme violation (Pumping Blood)

I stopped listening long before these lines came up, but I really hope they’re delivered Mortal Kombat-style. FATALITY.

But I open the sticks, sticky legs I bear
And then insert a fist, an arm
Some lost appendage
Please open me I beg (Mistress Dread)

There aren’t nearly enough songs in the rock canon about fisting. Wait, did I say “not nearly enough”? I meant “way too goddamn many”. (Note: as far as I know, “Mistress Dread” is the only rock song ever written about fisting)

If you can’t put a butterfly in a jar
If violence mars your final hour
If you make others feel like jam
Poured on a piece of charbroiled lamb (Iced Honey)

I’ve never had charbroiled lamb, does it go well with jam? It’s worth noting that even though it sounds like Lou Reed is preparing to give someone a piece of advice, that never actually happens. He just goes on like this for four and a half minutes.

I feel the pain creep up my leg
Blood runs from my nose
I puke my guts out at your feet
You’re more man than I
To be dead to have no feeling
To be dry and spermless like a girl (Frustration)

Heh, I remember my first beer. “Spermless like a girl” might be the silliest analogy I’ve ever heard, although it does have the virtue of being biologically accurate.

As long as you can raise that
Little doggie face to a cold hearted pussy
You could have a taste
A taste of what the big dog got
A taste of what the big dog got
The little dog with the one hundred dollar spot
Can run his tongue over the hot in trot
Hot in trot
Run his tongue over the hot in trot (Little Dog)

After that fisting line, I decided to avoid including any else sex-related on the grounds that it would be shooting fish in a barrel. That’s impossible, though, because literally about 2/3 of the lyrics on this album are about sex, and they’re all just as bad as this.

A red star of idiocy
An idiot’s idiocy (Dragon)

Well, yes, that would be where you get idiocy from.

We do like you regal
We do like you haughty
We do love to look upon your perfect body
The hair on your shoulders
The smell of your armpit
The taste of your vulva and everything on it (Dragon)

…Screw this, I’m going back to listening to Feist’s new album (have you heard it yet? It’s really good).