Pop and Jazz Reviews : Lou Reed: The Lyrics Speak for Themselves

When you have the words without the music, there’s no place to escape from a discomforting passage or for diversion from dullness. Lou Reed met that challenge at the Wadsworth Theater on Thursday, where he read selections from a newly published book of his lyrics.

Reed didn’t try to replace the music’s drama and punctuation with any theatrical devices. He just stood behind the podium and read in his familiar dry monotone. A cool detachment prevailed even in his most harrowing, personal confessions.

Reed and the audience both seemed tentative at first, but as he warmed to the task a rapport developed. Little gestures--like a flip of the wrist to punctuate a sha la la la la --seemed to carry great weight, and his occasional thin smiles and impromptu asides were warming and revealing.

Of all rock’s major figures, Reed is uniquely suited to this kind of performance. He’s one of the music’s most literary writers, adept at detailed observation and flavorful dialogue, and much of his music is virtually monologue with backing.

On Thursday, his “Songs for Drella” material--conversational verse in the voice of Andy Warhol--really shone, as did the show-closing selections from his upcoming album, “Magic and Loss,” a complex probing of disease, death and transcendence.