Shilpa Ray :: Make Up (Lou Reed)

LOU REED

Northern Spy is set to release Shilpa Ray’s next full-length, Last Year’s Savage, in May. In the meantime you can pick up the covers cassette, Make Up, both on tour and online. Ray covers Dinah Washington’s “What A Difference A Day Makes” and “Make Up” – track one off side two of Lou Reed’s Transformer. Ray, on the inspiration behind the Reed cover, below…

I had an epiphany about this song when I was in Palermo around Christmas after the Bad Seeds tour. Lou had died late October. I found out 10 minutes before I had to play solo before a sold out crowd at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. Needless to say, his passing had a massive effect on me. He was my childhood hero.   Europe was hard to grasp for me in a lot of ways. The culture, language barriers,the overload of dairy and ghettos of freshly placed refugees from countries, some I had never heard of before. I was exhausted and getting drunk outside a bar where you can get Marsala for a Euro, basically all I could afford. There were tons of kids dancing in the streets getting high and happy, when this stray yellow lab walked up to me and starts swaying back and forth. The song “Make Up” came blaring through the stereo   and I started swaying with the dog. It was one of those rare moments I felt alright.

Shilpa Ray :: Make Up (Lou Reed)

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