The Lou Reed Songbook: Six Strings and the Words

Lou personally chose the songs and their presentation, with just simple chords and lyrics for most, but also guitar tab for others. It doesn't get much better than this, and I own many songbooks from Rock-n-Roll Hall of Famers and legendary artists such as Lou Reed and Velvet Underground. If you want songs that influenced a thousand other bands and basically defined underground/alternative/garage/psychedelic, then here's the place to start. Six Strings and Words….you better believe it!LONG LIVE LOU! He remained true to himself to the very end. Warning: Not recommended for the squeamish or faint of heart. Taboo subject matter for those LGBT or otherwise. Dark, challenging, gritty NYC humor and heart. Take a walk on the wild side!

great book, i bought this for steve hunters work on rock n roll animal and it does not dissapoint, great tabs, but lots of work learning these great songs, like intro sweet jane, rock n roll and heroin. rest of the book is solid to, but love hunters and dick wagners playing, so i wanted to give it a go, looks super challenging and fun, highly recommended

More tab would have been a benefit, but Lou Reed remains a poet of our age before and after VU. Check out Live in Italy c.1984.

Great book of Lou’s works selected by the man himself. If you’re a fan, a I highly recommend getting a copy.

Received item as advertised & in a timely manner!

Great gift to a guitarist. He loved it.

Lou would pimp slap the goon that transcribed the tab for these precious songs. I bought it specifically for the lead part in Pale Blue Eyes. The book's treatment of this song is a joke. With free tabs and Youtube tutorials that are vastly superior, why would I ever buy a book like this again?

Well having grown up in the 60,s Lou Reed & the Velvet Underground were light years ahead of the pack so to get thissong book all these years later ha,ha,ha its cool!!

As a huge Velvet Underground and Lou Reed fan I was unfortunately let down by this chord book. It is needlessly large in size, lacks a huge amount of important songs (After Hours, All tomorrows parties, Black angels death song, Beginning to see the light, Candy says, European Son, Femme Fatale, Hangin Round, Guess I'm falling in love, Here she comes now, I'm set free, I'm so free, Jesus, I heard her call my name, Lady Godivas Operation, NY Telephone Conversation, Oh sweet nuthin, Run run run, Sister Ray, Some kinda love, That's the story of my life, There she goes again, The Bed, The Gift, Who loves the sun, Vicious, What goes on), some wrong chords (Sunday Morning, Sattelite of Love), and it is padded with huge amounts of guitar tab which is ABSOLUTELY USELESS. Why? Because it's tab of crappy live versions of songs with endless band improvisations that leads nowhere. I will instead opt to buy a lyrics book containing all or most of Lou's songs, and just scribble some chords down as I please, and will proceed to throw this book in the trash where it belongs.

Excellent all round

Unlike nearly all other song books produced by other companies this one is 90% just tableture with very little actual sheet music. Disappointed.

man mag diese Texte, Stimme und Chords - oder ... Ein wunderbar zusammengestelltes Songbook, eine Art Vermächtnis ! Good by, Conney Island Baby ...

Great idea to not have a limiting, plodding vocal melody line, which would be a terrible bondage for Lou's genius Piscean fluidity. He's trying to help us express ourselves. But how are you going to do a Lou Reed song justice without that voice? He gives you everything in the recorded and re-recorded versions. So write a new song of your own. Lou is helping us do that. But just imagine if anyone messed with his song. Bowie straightened a few of them up and did them justice, singing identifiable melody. Probably quite a lot of work for Lou, but one or two approximations of melody just to show the limitations of classical notation, and how far he's gone with vocal expression and identity may help.And he IS very specific when he sings notes nobody else has thought of. You can get them in single sheets for specific songs, but not one melody line here.