LOU REED & METALLICA - 'Pumping Blood' Lyrics Revealed
October 8, 2011, 13 years ago
In what is sure to be one of the most talked-about alliances of the year, LOU REED & METALLICA's Lulu album will be released by Warner Bros. Records on November 1st in North America (October 31st elsewhere).
A deluxe version of Lulu will be released in a tube-shaped container (13cm x 1.24m), and will include a 2CD digipack package, a large 1.2m x 1.6m poster (with song lyrics), and three photographs by Anton Corbijn (50cm x 50.8cm).
The collaboration recently posted the first complete Lulu song online. Check out 'The View' via YouTube below:
The complete Lulu tracklisting has been revealed and is as follows:
'Brandenburg Gate' (4:19)
'The View' (5:17)
'Pumping Blood' (7:24)
'Mistress Dread' (6:52)
'Iced Honey' (4:36)
'Cheat On Me' (11:26)
'Frustration' (8:33)
'Little Dog' (8:01)
'Dragon' (11:08)
'Junior Dad' (19:28)
The lyrics for 'Pumping Blood' can be found below:
If I pump out blood in the sunshine
Oil on the wheel
That is blasted and busted away
A nail or a little piece of glass
A little piece of glass
A little piece of glass
Swarming like bees over the air
Off the pump off the thing
The blood that I’m pumping away
Like bees over the air
Off the pump
Off the thing
The blood that I’m pumping away
Off the pump
Off the thing
The blood that I’m pumping away
If I pump blood in the sunshine
And you wear a leather box with azaleas
And I pump more blood
And it seeps through my skin
Will you adore the river
The stream, the trickle
The tributary of my heart
As I pump more blood
And it seeps through my skin
Will you adore the river
The stream, the trickle
The tributary of my heart
If I’m pumping blood
Like a common state worker
If I waggle my ass like a dark prostitute
Would you think less of me
And my coagulating heart
Waggle my ass like a dark prostitute
Coagulating heart
Pumping blood
Would you top me off
Would you top me off as I deepen a curtsy
While you yell out, “mercy”
We grow apart
Would you rip and cut me
Use a knife on me
Be shocked at the boldness
The coldness of this little heart
Tied up in leather
Would you take the measure
Of the blood that I pump
In the manic confusion of love
Supreme violation
Supreme violation
“Oh, ah, ah, ah Jack I beseech you”“Oh Jack I beseech you”
Supreme violation
Blood in the foyer
The bathroom
The tea room
The kitchen, with her knives splayed
I will swallow your sharpest cutter
Like a colored man’s dick
Blood spurting from me
“Oh Jack, Jack I beseech…”“Jack, I beseech you, I beseech…”
In the end it was an ordinary heart
“Oh Jack I beseech you”As I scream out my pain
In the end it was an ordinary heart
In the end, in the end, in the end
It was an ordinary heart
“Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack I beseech you”Supreme violation . . . Oh
“Jack, Jack, Jack I beseech you”I call out your name
Blood in the foyer, the bathroom,
The tea room, the kitchen
And knives splayed
I swallow your sharpest cutter
Like a colored man’s dick
Blood spurting from me
Blood spurting from me
“Oh Jack”“Oh Jack, I beseech ya”
In the end it was an ordinary heart
In the end it was an ordinary heart
Pumping blood
Lulu was co-produced by Reed, Metallica, Hal Willner who has produced albums for Reed, MARIANNE FAITHFUL, and LAURIE ANDERSON, among others and Greg Fidelman. Fidelman also mixed the record.
The idea for these two giants of modern music to work together was born after the 25th anniversary Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame concerts in New York City in October 2009. Metallica -singer/guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Rob Trujillo - played with Reed on VELVET UNDERGROUND classics, 'Sweet Jane' and 'White Light/White Heat'.
"We knew from then that we were made for each other," Reed says.After that triumphant performance, Reed suggested they all make a record together. At first they planned to record an album of Reed's older material, what Ulrich describes as "some of Lou's lost jewels - songs that he felt he'd like to give a second spin, and we could do whatever it is we do to some of those songs." That idea "hung in the air for a couple of months." Then, a week or two before that session was to begin, "Lou called up and said, 'Listen, I have this other idea.'"
That idea was to record a series of songs Reed had written for American avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson and German theater group the Berliner Ensemble's production of the Lulu Plays, which premiered in Aprilat theTheatre am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, founded by Bertolt Brecht. The songs are inspired by German expressionist Frank Wedekind's early 20th century plays Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, and were a rewrite of Edgar Allan Poe's, The Raven, which emerged as a graphic novel on Fantagraphics Press.
"We had to bring Lulu to life in a sophisticated way, using rock," Reed says. "And the hardest power rock you could come up with would have to be Metallica. They live on that planet. We played together, and I knew it: dream come true. This is the best thing I ever did. And I did it with the best group I could possibly find. By definition, everybody involved was honest. This has come into the world pure. We pushed as far as we possibly could within the realms of reality."
"It's definitely not a Metallica album, or a Lou Reed album," adds Hammett. "It's something else. It's a new animal, a hybrid."
A short EPK for the release can be found below:
Be among the first to hear Lulu at an intimate listening session with Lou Reed and Metallica on Monday, October 24th. The Metallica Club and Bowers & Wilkins Sound Sessions will be giving away passes to the small private gathering in New York City and you could join them there.
Enter to win passes and an opportunity to meet the guys at this location. Metallica Club members can also enter at Metallica.com after logging in to the Members Area.
For more details visit Loureedmetallica.com.
