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And when we’re for real like that, we get what we need when we need it the most.

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Dec 12, 2023Liked by David Yaffe

Really liked Velvet Underground when I was younger, saw them. I don't think Lou, though, despite the image and "darkness" and mystique over the years, ever wrote a song of loss that matched Laura Nyro's "Been on a Train" or Bert Jansch's "Needle of Death," (which inspired Neil Young's song). Maybe I'm wrong. I am surprised, though, that Nick Drake's name didn't pop up in this piece!

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Dec 12, 2023Liked by David Yaffe

Keats died young, and Shelley wrote "Adonais." Shelly drowned young. Arthur Henry Hallum died young, and Tennyson wrote IN MEMORIAM. Emerson wrote "Threnody" on the death of his young son, Waldo.

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Ruckert wrote poems for his dead children (that's about as real as it gets), and Mahler set them to music in his "Kindertotenlieder."

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I've been preaching the Gospel of Magic & Loss since I first heard this album. Thank you for this because as Reed sings, "Life's like a mayonnaise soda."

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