God only knows when I'll play it, though. It's the definition of downbeat; the saddest, most depressing record ever made, as well as one of the most serious and sentimental, the most brutal and manipulative. The cover looks like something out of a Fassbinder film. No wonder Fassbinder used it in his masterpiece Berlin Alexanderplatz. Every time I've ever listened to it I've wound up feeling very moved, yet also cranky and a little bit used, which is not true of the other masterpieces in the Reed/VU canon. It's a brilliant sort of pre-Sid and Nancy tale of love and drugs, with long doleful scenes of kids getting taken from their mother, and of suicide. I suspect there are no people who love this record, while there are many who hate it, and I doubt anyone who has heard it has been left unaffected.
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