New Song Alert: Worlds Collide!! The Reverend Al Green Covers Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”! Oh, Yes!

“Oh it’s such a perfect day, I’m glad I spend it with you…” – Lou Reed, “Perfect Day”

This week, while I was still grooving on the Talking Heads’ live album, Stop Making Sense, I discovered legendary R&B/Soul singer Al Green had released a new cover version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” Al Green, nay, the Reverend Al Green from the Soul/R&B/Gospel end of the street covering a song by Lou Reed from the dirty, druggy underside of New York. I don’t know how else to describe it than “worlds collide!” I haven’t been this happy about world’s colliding since I discovered the Rock Chick’s favorite Mike Ness (of Social Distortion, a band she turned me onto early in our relationship) teamed up with one of my favorites, Bruce Springsteen, for the duet “Misery Loves Company.” If you haven’t heard that song, do yourself a favor and seek it out.

Admittedly, I’ve always loved a good cover song. It’s like a 2 for 1 special down at the bar. A cover song is where an artist, in this case Al Green, chooses to record a song that was written and recorded by someone else, in this case Lou Reed. Cover songs can be a mixed bag. For me, whether it’s Rod Stewart doing Dylan songs, Cheap Trick doing Beatles’ songs, or every rock band I love doing Chuck Berry songs, I dig when an artist connects with someone else’s material. Some artists have done entire albums made up of cover songs.  At their worse, a cover song can just be a faithful recreation of the original song. But many times an artist can take a cover song and make it their own, like say, Aretha Franklin doing Otis Redding’s “Respect.” I think we can all agree the Queen Of Soul owns that song.

As long time readers know, I’m a big Lou Reed fan. I’m still kicking myself for buying New York on cassette instead of vinyl. “Perfect Day” dates from his second, and most famous LP, Transformer, produced by David Bowie and (Spider’s From Mars guitarist) Mick Ronson (who played the piano and did the string arrangement on the original). On it’s surface it appears to be a pretty straightforward song about a guy who is just so happy to have spent a wonderful day in the park with his wife. This being Lou Reed, many people have suggested that Lou wrote the song about heroin and his relationship with that drug… “You just keep me hanging on…” Lou has denied that. Ironically, in the early days of my marriage when the Rock Chick and her mini-me would gang up against me – usually on Saturday house cleaning days – if they’d really upset me I’d play “Perfect Day” at top volume, in an attempt to be sarcastic. I’d also play Lyle Lovett’s “I Love Everybody” and point at them when the lyric “especially you” came up. I think my sarcasm was lost on them, but it made me feel better at the time. Anyway, I’ve always loved this song. I didn’t realize it was the original B-side to “Walk On The Wild Side.” I guess I need to amend my list of favorite B-sides… 

Here is Lou’s original version of “Perfect Day,” for those who haven’t experienced before:

“Perfect Day,” has indeed been covered before this momentous version by Al Green. Duran Duran covered it on their “cover album” Thank You. It was not only a hit, it drew the praise of the author himself. Hard to get my head around Lou Reed complimenting Duran Duran, but he did. He said he thought it was one of the best versions of one of his songs. There was a big charity version of the song in the UK (?) with Lou, Bowie and big cast of other singers who did the song. Up to today, one of my favorite covers of the song is Lou singing it with, yes, opera singer Luciano Pavarotti. Talk about world’s colliding?

Which all leads us to today and Rev. Al Green’s sublime version of this song. Al was one of the most popular soul/R&B singers in the world in the 70s. His voice is pure sunshine. My friend Arkansas Joel and I used to drink whiskey and talk about how even when Al sang a sad song, it still made you feel happy. There’s so much joy in the guy’s voice. At his zenith, in 1974, Al had a bit of a dispute with a girlfriend who doused him with boiling grits, resulting in serious second-degree burns all over his back. She then shot herself. I’m not sure Al ever recovered from that shocking series of events. Even Al Green has known the dark side of life. His popularity declined and he found God and became an ordained minister. He moved to just doing gospel music for a long time. In 1988 he returned to secular music.

Early this week, on social media, I saw a video clip of Lou Reed talking about how he always wanted to sing like Al Green and Otis Redding. He told a funny story about meeting Al Green… it was disappointing for Lou. Al just kept saying, “I know your face, I can’t place your name.” Lou joked about his not having a voice like Al’s so he could never do what Al could do. I wondered why someone had posted that clip. Then I stumbled upon this Al Green version of “Perfect Day.”

As I listen to Al’s version of this song, I can’t help but think it’s perfect for him. You can hear Lou’s desire to be a serious soul singer hiding in the song. Al doesn’t so much sing the song as inhabit it. That joy, so inherent in his voice, comes through like the sun bursting through the clouds at the end of a storm. I will always consider Lou’s version to be definitive but Al Green’s version is about as perfect as you can get. Here is Al’s version:

I love that a guitar player’s, Mick Ronson, string arrangement survives in tact, which I think is the critical part of the song.

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing today, I urge you to come to the Church of Rock N Roll with the Reverend Al Green for a reading from the book of Lou. If this track doesn’t butter your toast, get to a hospital and have them do a scan to see if you still  have a beating heart! I defy you to not feel good and smile when you hear Al sing, “Just a perfect day, You make me forget myself, I thought I was someone else, Someone good…” Oh, Lou, I know exactly how you feel. Somewhere out there… Lou is listening to this song and smiling, just like me.

Cheers!