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 'Iced Honey' can be found below:

You can't put a butterfly in a jar

If the effort's too high no matter who you are

You can't catch the moon, or the sun or the stars

It doesn't matter who you are

Iced honey

Now me I've tried a million tricks

To make life cold and make it stick

Not running heat that flames then out

But the proud piece of ice that always floats

Iced honey

If I can't trap a butterfly or a bee

If I can't keep my heart where I want it to be

If no matter how much soul and heart

I put to the wood

If a flaming heart is not that good

Iced honey

If you can't put a butterfly in a jar

If violence mars your final hour

If you make others feel like jam

Poured on a piece of charbroiled lamb

If it's all mixed up and you cannot shout

And your oxygen starts to run out

If your final gasp has the recipe wrong

And instead of hello you say so long

If your energy starts to leak out

And people wonder what you're all about

A heartbreaker with an unattached heart

The story of love gives them all a start

And me, I've always been this way

Not by choice, just this way

I can't put my honey pot in a jar

Or a heart or a fist of some young boy

If you can't put a butterfly in a jar

No wonder no need to wonder where you are

It might seem like Hell, the river Styx

Your affection never sticks

No matter what you say, no matter what you do

A butterfly heart flies right past you

There's nothing to say, nothing to do

See if the ice will melt for you

Iced honey

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 were very interested in working with Lou," says Hetfield. "I had these giant question marks: What's it going to be like? What's going to happen? So it was great when he sent us the lyrics for the Lulu body of work. It was something we could sink our teeth into. I could take off my singer and lyricist hat and concentrate on the music part. These were very potent lyrics, with a soundscape behind them for atmosphere. Lars and I sat there with an acoustic and let this blank canvas take us where it needed to go. It was a great gift, to be asked to stamp 'tallica on it. And that's what we did."
"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."

For more details visit Loureedmetallica.com.