Lou Reed, Nico, Jackson Browne
Leonard Cohen – Lost In New York
Leonard Cohen provides, in his own words, an entertaining synopsis of his time in New York during the 1960s, including the kind words Lou Reed had for him and the less kind words of dismissal he received from Nico:1
In 1966 I borrowed some money from a friend in Montreal and came down to the great empire, America, to try to make my way. I had written a few books and I couldn’t make a living. I played in a country band and I loved country music and I had a few songs I thought were country songs and I was on my way ultimately to Nashville but I got ambushed in New York by the folk renaissance — and got my first public appearance at the Newport Folk Festival. In New York I found this huge explosion of things and I was interested in this enlightened community being promoted in the east side of New York and I would go down there but I couldn’t locate it.
I walked into a club called the Dome and I saw someone singing there who looked like she inhabited a Nazi poster; it was Nico, the perfect Aryan ice queen.
And there was a very handsome young man playing for her; he turned out to be Jackson Browne.
I just stood there and said forget the new society, this is the woman I’ve been looking for. I followed her all around New York.
She led me to Max’s Kansas City. I met Lou Reed there and he said something very kind to me which made me feel at home. I had no particular clout in that scene. I was just a guy who was a little older than the other guys, just sniffing around like everybody else. I was very lonely and mostly interested in finding a girl. Lou came over and introduced himself and said, “I love your book.” I never knew anybody knew my books because they only sold a few thousand copies in America. We were sitting at a table and some guy was bugging me, in a polite sort of way, and I was responding in a polite sort of way, and Lou Reed said to me, “Hey, man, you don’t have to be nice to this guy. You don’t have to be nice to anybody. You’re the man who wrote ‘Beautiful Losers.’”
Nico eventually told me, “Look, I like young boys. You’re just too old for me.”
- From Yakety Yak by Scott Cohen 1994