Mr. Reed is not one to keep
his opinions to himself. Hardly.

I had spoken to Reed a few months earlier about the album, and at that time he had told me about one of the songs, "Sex With Your Parents," a stinging indictment of right wing politicians.

Addicted To Noise: I spoke at a rally about Internet censorship back in December and at the end of a brief statement, I told people about your song "Sex with your Parents" and said it was the kind of thing that if some congressman just heard the title, they would think it was something that should not be on the Internet. But in fact, this song is a statement about those very congressmen. It got great applause when they heard about this song on the album. Afterwards, people came up to me and would say, wow, that was so perfect, that thing about that Lou Reed song. I wonder if you had any feelings about the fact that Congress just passed and the President just signed in a bill that puts more restrictions on content on the Internet than is in any sort of medium right now.

Lou Reed: In one sense, it's completely incomprehensible to me. I would have thought those days were over, but when you see what's going on with the NEA, you realize this is not as surprising as you might have thought. And you correct me if I have it wrong, but it seems that electronic mail doesn't receive the same constitutional guarantees as written mail. Or as someone else said to me, I have it here, I write it, it's OK. You have it over there, you read it, it's OK. It's the in-between, when it's going in-between. And that's because, as I understand it, again correct me if I'm wrong, they're--the bad guys--saying that it's broadcast, that it's being broadcast, and therefore it's subject to the same things as TV. What can you say to anyone who says that? It's so either maliciously off base and a convenient thing just to...to what, what are they talking about? What are they talking about?

[For more of Lou Reed's opinions on censorship, both on- and off-line, go here]

Reed, Lou, "Sex With Your Parents Pt2"
(45 second excerpt)

Stereo MPEG (1.13M)

Mono MPEG (563k)

Mono Sun-AU (375k)

RealAudio 28.8k

ATN: What in particular prompted you to write "Sex With Your Parents?"

Reed: I have no idea what prompts me to write any song ever other than things going on around me and I react to it. And certainly this stuff has been going on around for awhile so I guess, for whatever reason, it set me off in a writing mode about this. I know it's not going to affect anything. I know it's not going to change anybody's mind. I know I'm talking to the converted. I know all that. I know that. It's just an expression of something. It'd be nice if it could become a theme song for something as far as I'm concerned. Although I'm not into being part of a group even though right now I'm advocating the only way to stop these people is to get organized yourselves and do something. I would love to have that song as a reference point. I would love it if you called up the national anti- censorship line for the Internet. When they put you on hold, you heard "Sex with your Parents" or something like that.

It's a nice expression of something. I'd like people out there to see that. But I'm talking to the converted. I'm not going to convince anybody from the right by that song. But it would be nice to get a chuckle out of people who do agree with you and give them a little spirit from it. This misery we had hoped vanished years ago. They couldn't do it in books, they couldn't do it in movies, they're trying it on TV and now here they are, here's a fresh thing. We couldn't do it over here, they couldn't do it in a book. Not for lack of trying. This is a country that banned Ulysses. James Joyce. Are we proud of this, this Puritan country? Is this something to be proud of? Henry Miller having to go to France

If you blink real fast, you can see
Beelzebub in those lights. Quick! Ban them!
Photo by Struan Oglanby

to be published. William Burroughs to France to be published. And then the books are stopped over here. Then it's no big surprise that they want to leap all over the Internet and make it like that. It always surprises me, you go to a beach in countries like France or wherever, the women are topless. No one thinks about it. You go in a sauna. Everybody's in the sauna. If you did it in New York, there'd be pillage. God only knows what would happen. It's such a big forbidden thing. It's such a big deal. Blown out of proportion. Where's the undefended soft little thing to go after right now with all that vehemence that's been geared up to go after books and movies and really try to censor things. The Internet. There it sits. This glorious thing with access to this and that. And guess what? Who leaps in? Them.

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