Performer [Uncredited] – Lou Reed

Me (aged 16): Dad, do you hear a woman on this?
Dad: No, why?
Me: I heard there was a Lou Reed on it.

I was listening to the 7" of "This Is Your Land" by Simple Minds - then at their most hideously pompous - I'd just bought in the local John Menzies after having heard it on the radio.  Not the coolest route into the sometimes astonishing work of Lou Reed but it was my route.  Coincidentally, I was just talking about that 7" earlier today - just hours before I heard that he had passed away - when I confessed that it currently resides in my lowest-of-the-low 7" box: a cut-down Rice Crispies packet alongside the 25p Ned's Atomic Dustbin single etc..  It's the only record I have to feature Lou Reed to have met such an ignominous fate; all The Velvet Underground records I own are totally treasured, especially the Sundazed Records singles boxset which is, of course, nigh on untouchable.  I choose to overlook the headless guitars and the Simple Minds collaborations and think of him as the young man who sang this:

Thanks, Lou.