Trouble With Classicists

In 1990, I was 25 years old and just about to graduate from San Francisco State University with a degree in Political Science. Back then, I made a lot of mix tapes for both my girlfriend (now my wife) and myself and I learned a lot of off-the-beaten-path songs from listening to KUSF, the college radio station affiliated with the University of San Francisco. One day I was driving back to my apartment from school, and KUSF was playing “A Dream” from the album Songs For Drella by Lou Reed and John Cale. I found it to be quite mesmerizing and even meditative. So, I did what I usually did back then, I noted who created the song and then went record shopping.

I wasn’t disappointed by the purchase. Indeed, I still listen to the album from time to time. One of the songs that I really like (and it has something to do with the guitar chord progression Lou Reed does at the beginning) is “Trouble With Classicists.” The song is spoken/sung by John Cale and, like the entire album, is about Andy Warhol — who was a mentor to both of them.

This 1990 live performance of the “Trouble With Classicists” is not the restored one that was officially released as a film in 2022. But it’s the best one I can find of this audience-free concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Reed and Cale didn’t really like each other much, but they did create one of the most brutally honest records about a very famous pop culture artist who had a lot of influence over the music they created with the Velvet Underground.

I’ve been trying to figure out the chord progression Reed does at the beginning, and there are sites that seem to have the answer, but I’m not getting the right sound out of my guitar with the chords mentioned. Loureed.it has these chords listed in the intro: A/Asus2 |G/D | A/Asus2 |G/D. A site dedicated to detailing all of John Cale’s songs has this chord progression: A G | D/A | A G | D/A |.

Well, I’ve watched Lou Reed play the song on this live clip a few times, and I think I know what chord shapes he’s making, but can’t replicate them in a way that sounds right to my ears. So, as I struggle to find the right progression (see video below), I’ll leave you with what Rolling Stone noted in their review of the album — and “Trouble With Classicists” in particular.

Cale’s “Trouble With Classicists” honors the shocking newness of Warhol the painter, dishing surrealism and abstract expressionism in the lines “And surrealist memories are too amorphous and proud/While those downtown macho painters are just alcoholic. — By Paul Evans, May 17, 1990, Rolling Stone

Lousy Guitar Playing Of “Trouble With Classicists”