Walk on the Wild Side (Lou Reed song)
"Walk on the Wild Side" is a Lou Reed song from his 1972 second solo album Transformer. It was produced by David Bowie. The song received wide radio coverage, despite its touching on taboo topics such as transsexuality, drugs, male prostitutes and oral sex. In the United States, RCA released an edited version of the song as a single which eliminated the song's reference to oral sex.
The lyrics tell of a series of individuals and their journeys to New York City, and refers to several of the regular "superstars" at Andy Warhol's New York studio, The Factory, namely Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling, Joe Dallesandro, Jackie Curtis and Joe Campbell (referred to in the song by his nickname Sugar Plum Fairy). Candy Darling was also the subject of Reed's earlier song for The Velvet Underground, "Candy Says".
Musicians
The saxophone solo played over the fadeout of the song was performed by Ronnie Ross, who had previously taught David Bowie to play the saxophone during Bowie's childhood.
The backing vocals were sung by Thunderthighs, a girl group that included founder Dari Lallou, Karen Friedman, Jacki Campbell and Casey Synge.
Musical elements
The song is also noted for its twin interlocking bass lines played by Herbie Flowers on double bass and overdubbed fretless bass guitar. In an interview on BBC Radio 4 (Playing Second Fiddle, aired July 2005) Herbie Flowers claimed that the reason he came up with the twin bass line was that, as a session musician he would be paid double for playing two instruments on the same track.
The chord progression mostly consists of two alternating chords, C and F.
Inspiration
In the 2001 documentary Classic Albums: Lou Reed: Transformer, Reed says that it was Nelson Algren's 1956 novel, A Walk on the Wild Side, that was the launching off point for the song, even though the song grew to be inhabited by characters from his own life. As with several other Reed songs from the 1970s, the title may also be an allusion to an earlier song, in this case Mack David and Elmer Bernstein's song of the same name, the Academy Award-nominated title song of the 1962 film based on Algren's novel. During his performance of the song on his 1978 Live: Take No Prisoners album, Reed humorously explains the song's development from a request that he write the music for the never completed musical version of Algren's novel
Covers, samples and media references
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Recorded covers
- In 1985, 79-year old veteran German actress Gerty Molzen recorded her own version of the song, cleaning up some of the lyrics in the process. She performed it on the David Letterman show in the US and on Gay Byrne's Late Late Show in Ireland.
- In February 1990, two club/hiphop versions charted simultaneously in the UK - Jamie J. Morgan's cover produced by Richard Mazda reached #27, whilst Beat System got to #63.[1]
- Vanessa Paradis covered the song in her 1990 album Variations sur le même t'aime.
- This song was covered by Company B, on their 1996 album Jam on Me.
- Trumpeter Rick Braun covered the song on the 2005 album Yours Truly.[2][3]
- The German group Tok Tok Tok covered this song in their album I Wish in 2005.
- Editors covered this song on the 2007 album Rhythms del Mundo Classics.
- Jesse Malin covered it on On Your Sleeve, a cover album released in 2008.
- Train sings this song for the Bay Area's local station KFOG, on a CD called Live From The Archives: Vol. 11, as a part of the KFOG Kaboom Medley.
Live covers
- Echo & the Bunnymen usually merge this in concert with "Nothing Lasts Forever".
- The Strokes and Robbie Williams played the full song or a snippet during their last tours.
- The band Sponge has been known to break into the song in the middle of playing their hit "Have You Seen Mary?" in live performances.
- The Rentals also play it live before transitioning into their hit "Friends of P".
- A short part of the song was often used by Bono during performances of "Bad" in the mid eighties. Most notably performed at Live Aid in London.
- At a charity event, Lou Reed played this song with comedians Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Fallon, Adam Sandler, and Jack Black. Each person took on one verse of the song.
- Young@Heart perform this song in concert.
- Moby includes the song in his concerts. During Exit Festival 2009, he referred to it as "his favorite song about New York."
- Australian band Yves Klein Blue covered the song on the radio segment 'Like a Version' on Triple J in 2010
Parodies
- Irish/Australian comedian Jimeoin covered the song in 1993 on his music/comedy CD, Goin' Off. The song featured the line "You should have seen them go go go, I said G-O-G-G-O, take a walk on the wildside" as a reference to the popular Yellow Pages ad on TV at the time.
Samples
Interpolations of the song
- Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia wrote the music for Robert Hunter's composition "Franklin's Tower" using the "do-doo-doo" chorus as his jumping off point.
- Coyote Shivers sings "& the colored girls sing doo doo doo..." in his 1999 song "Secretly Jealous".
- Primitive Radio Gods use the "doo doo doo..." refrain as well as a modified sample of the song's signature bass chord in their song "Standing Outside A Broken Phonebooth With Money In My Hand".
Film and television appearances
- A few bars of a syrupy cover of the song are performed by the squeaky-clean teen variety act "Hooray for Everything!" in the 1993 episode "Selma's Choice" of The Simpsons.
- Natalie Portman sings the line "And the colored girls go Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo" in the 1996 film Beautiful Girls.
- In a scene from the 2001 film Hedwig and the Angry Inch Hedwig starts singing it while in an oven.
- In the 2002 film The Salton Sea an old man with a tracheotomy sings the song on a karaoke machine in a bar.
- In the 2005 movie Guess Who this song is playing on the radio while Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher are driving in the car.
- This song is usually the opening to Danny Masterson's LA radio show, "Feel My Heat".
- In the television show Medium, the episode "Lady Killer" featured the tune of "Walk on the Wild side" (with no lyrics) during Patricia Arquette's character's dreams about a woman seducing men, and perhaps gave a clue to who the actual killer was.
- The bass line of the song is used in a Gatorade G2 commercial.
Other musical references to the song
References
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1971
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1972
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1991
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1994
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1997
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1999
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- discography
- Book:David Bowie / Part 2 Singles and songs
- Category:David Bowie
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