Walk on the Wild Side (Lou Reed song)

"Walk on the Wild Side"
Single by Lou Reed
from the album Transformer
B-side	"Perfect Day"
Released	November 1972
Format	Single
Genre	Rock, Folk rock
Length	4:12 3:37 (edited version)
Label	RCA
Writer(s)	Lou Reed
Producer	David Bowie (Executive) Mick Ronson (Asst.)

"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 and references

• 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.
• Vanessa Paradis covered the song in her 1990 album Variations sur le même t'aime.
• Trumpeter Rick Braun covered the song on the 2005 album Yours Truly.
• Jesse Malin covered it on On Your Sleeve, a cover album released in 2008.
• 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.
• Irish/Australian comedian Jimeoin covered the song in 1993 on his music/comedy CD, Goin' Off.
• Hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest sampled the song in "Can I Kick It?", on their 1990 debut People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. ("Can I Kick It?" has in turn been covered by various other artists.)
• Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch sampled the song in the 1991 single "Wildside".
• 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.
• Rod Stewart's 1977 hit song "The Killing of Georgie" covers similar terrain as "Walk on the Wild Side", and also takes important elements of melody and backing vocals.
• Stephan Jenkins, lead singer of American alternative rock band Third Eye Blind has stated that the band's hit song "Semi-Charmed Life" was meant as a response to "Walk on the Wild Side", but from a San Francisco perspective.