SALLY CAN'T DANCE by LOU REED
Review by Lester Bangs

I never heard of this guy before in my life, but I'm loaded with dough because Penthouse will pay me 350 smackers just for scribbling some shit about Dana Gillespie which they don't even run until RCA drops her, so I bought the album for 39 cents in the local Korvette's bin along with the Tingling Mothers Flying Circus, Chrome Cyrkus, Circus Maximus, and the Circus Raves Mar Y Sol Memorial Bootleg jam between Cubby Koda and Mal Valdron. All those albums of course sucked duck dicky but what the hell we all know the whole purpose of bargain bins is not good music but throwing away bad money hand over hangnail, and it was sheer nihilism which sent me there in the first place since just like with burgers which now curdle my stomach (nothing but the finest we-deliver chop suey for this rock honcho these days). I just like to wallow in waxen crap so I can Irritate my roommates who'd rather be listening to Roxy Music or something wimpy like that. I almost passed over this Reed guy's disque but the cover was catchy, nice and white like a can of Olympia beer before they changed 'em plus which it had the word "Dance" in the title and I'm a disco nut just like all the other trendies only my left leg's in a splint because I fell over a curb en route to seeing "The The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: so all I can do now is sort of grovel along the walls but what the hell you takes it where you find it. Plus which there was this nigger cunt on the back who looked like she was so junked up she was about to drop her Viceroy outa her big flapjack lips and burn a hole in her nipple and I'm a sucker for corn poon so I bought the damn thing instead of a sno-cone.
Took it home and after forgetting and leaving the Tingling Mothers in the oven for too long so the tacos were ruined there was nothing to do but put it (the Lou Reed album) on and damned if it didn't sound just like somebody I can barely almost remember from my old researches in the Rock Encyclopedia before Lil kicked the bucket and didn't get to update the damn thing which I lost my copy for 25 bucks when Dennis Metrano bought it from me, no it wasn't Dennis Metrano it was what's the name of that geek from Chicago, David Newburger, well he bought my copy just because Lil had autographed it in 1971 ("To Lester: I'll always remember that glorious night in the back seat of Lita Elison's rented limo you bit my clit off and mailed to R. Meltzer as an art statement but luckily he gave it to Lisa Robinson preserved in jello and she sewed it back on with some spools of videotape Richard had laying around so now I can come again with a little effort but anyway it was in that divine moment that I realized you were a genius and you didn't even call me a vat of lard and I liked the earwax out from underneath your fingernails while we listened to Jimi burn Emeretta in stereo and I told you of my premonition that I would be the next culturati to blaze out and leave an elegantoidal urn. Love and Easybeats you devil, Lillian.").

But, I'm getting off the track. So to jump back let's just consider the first track on this discodancingmania albumin, "Ride Sally Ride". This is a song based on watching the scene where Marcello Mastoicannni or however you spell that fazoola's name rides the chick bareback through that divinely decadent party with the Bill Haley soundtrack in LA DOLCA VITA. This Lou Reed character is swacking the bitch on the heinie and giving her contusions whilst applying icepacks to her left tit because she's got myocardial puffinstuff. See the guy's a doctor too, and the whole record's a concept album about various medicines, nostrums and forms of cure he's even got the niggers backin him up. Next song is more the same therapy, this time he's a veterinarian shooting up dogs and cats with swat so they don't masturbate themselves to

death which as everybody knows has been going around, it's  Courier Newboo and Boogie Down wine., but his Cheez-Its too. Serves the little snotclot right. I particularly like the line: "I tried to help you copa buzz. Now your trailing snailing scuzz/ Get your recthole troo the door/ I've got dibs on this one last Rorer." A good MD never compromises in the face of hypochondriacal hustlers.
Next up is "New York Stars", an astrological exploitation number recently covered by the Peanut Butter Conspiracy. It's all about how air pollution is making such greater strides we can all forget about extraterrestrial travel because the constellations are turning to limp chickpeas. Best thing about this cut is the whole thing is told from the point of Maureen Tucker's one good eye (the other one got patched after Doug Yule pried it out and ate it) starring through a telescope on the roof of Lou's Manhattan penthouse.
Flip this monstropiss over and got "Kill Your Sons" straight advice to unwed parents who didn't have the smarts or plain $$$ to nip the little buggers in the bud via abortions. Lou outdoes himself lyrically on this one: "Just take the pink and whiny blobs of fat and dump 'em in a sink/ Soak 'em in lye till they really start to stink/ Then siphon the clumpy lumps into your catrerizer/ Churn it up, fill yer dildo, what a real gone geyser!" Then he adds, speaking just before the guitars fade, "Hugh Hefner taught me this trick."

"Ennui" is the best song on the album. Instead of hiring musicians Lou just recorded random conversation on a hardhat's lunchbreak -- "Sure hope I get some pussy tonite I'm getting tired of jackin' off at Sally Struthers." "Yeah, you'd stick it between two bricks!" "Hey Manny, can't you ever get some beers that're fuckin' cold?" It goes on like that for 13 minutes while Lou intersperses his own wry comments: "Everybody says all I ever write about is sleaze and dope, so I thought I'd give 'em a taste of real life...John Cage'll probably steal the idea: I think Cale already had...fuck 'em."

After that comes the title monstro hitrola, "Sally Can't Dance." This is a tender ballad about a quadroplegic ballerina on the boards by learning to tiptoe around the stage on her tongue. She works her way up form Ted Mack's back room and eventually ends up giving tonsil tickles to Rudolph Nureyev while the entire Kennedy family looks on applauding madly in a sellout gig at Lincoln Center. I can't figure out why it wasn't a hit. It's got a hook unknown since the likes of Moulty.

Finally, we come to "Billy." This is more personal I think. It's about Billy Eckstine's do-rag collection. Like Tom T. Hall, Lou Reed seems to be fond of making lists, and this is the longest one yet. Also has a nice dobro solo from Edgar Froese. Great lyrics again: "Well, there's the old red bandana my daddy gave me/ He was a brotherin the Sleeping Car Porters form way back/ And then there is the one I copped from Jimi Hendrix, just before he gagged and peed/ I had it dry-cleaned, shit Jack it was soaked in smack/ But best of all among my souvenirs/ The handkerchief I've wacked away the years/ Is this lowly old glory of a Kotex that Ella Fitzgerald willed to John Lennon after their last tumble in the sack/ Shee-it, baby, I know more superstars than you shake a hangnail
at!"

Great song, great album, great future for this Lou Reed who as you can see from all the above has certainly captured the dreams and imagination of a whole invisible generation yet woodshedded. I play it when I fall asleep in the morning, I carry it under my arm to in placebo the WALL STREET JOURNAL when attending exclusive luncheons with Ron Delsener, it looks better wedged in my cravat that a copy of UOMO VOGUE. All going to prove that rock 'r' roll is far from deal and SALLY CAN'T DANCE is a bargain at slice the price or stile outright. Iggy who?