The late Lou Reed’s friends have come to the singer’s defense after a Canadian university deemed his 1972 hit “Walk on the Wild Side” transphobic.
The catchy ditty, known for its repeated “doot, di-doot” melody, caught the ire of several University of Guelph students after it was played at a campus event, sparking the Ontario school to issue a since-deleted apology on Facebook, according to MRCTV.
“We now know the lyrics to this song are hurtful to our friends in the trans community and we’d like to unreservedly apologize for this error in judgment,” the Guelph Central Student Association wrote in the post.
But Reed’s longtime producer Hal Willner sees no merit to the claims, which refer to the song’s opening lines about Holly Woodlawn and Candy Darling, both transgender women who rose to fame as part of Andy Warhol’s group of “superstars.” In the lyrics, Reed sings, “Holly came from Miami, FLA/Hitchhiked her way across the USA/Plucked her eyebrows on the way/Shaved her legs and then he was a she/She says, ‘Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.'”
“I don’t know if Lou would be cracking up about this or crying because it’s just too stupid,” Willner told the Guardian. “The song was a love song to all the people he knew and to New York City by a man who supported the community and the city his whole life… This song was how the world first heard about these people. The students should be focusing their anger on other stuff and this isn’t it.”
Reed died in 2013 from liver disease, but not before the former Velvet Underground member managed to carve out a successful solo career and cement his music legacy. And his friend and former backup singer Jenni Muldaur insists that the idea that anyone could interpret anything but love and acceptance from his signature tune is “completely ridiculous.”
“Lou was open about his complete acceptance of all creatures of the night,” she told the British newspaper. “That’s what that song’s about. Everyone doing their thing, taking a walk on the wild side. I can’t imagine how anyone could conceive of that. The album was called ‘Transformer.’ What do they think it’s about?”
Upon its original release, the song, which was co-produced by David Bowie, reached No. 16 on the Billboard charts and has since been sampled by the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and Mark Wahlberg’s Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.
