1989 – "I'd like to recommend that you listen to this whole album in one sitting, as if you were reading a book or watching a film." So writes Lou Reed in the liner notes of New York, his 15th studio album. In 57 minutes, Lou brings together 14 songs that, with apparent cynicism, tell of a corner of the world where the unhappy, the repressed, the perverted, the homeless and the Aids-stricken struggle to get through their complicated lives. There is neither detachment nor judgement, only adult engagement: it is not the commentary that matters but the choice of stories told, which, on their own, describe so many dramatic existences better than anything else could.

Of the 14 songs on New York, there is one — Dirty Boulevard — that becomes the emblematic track of the entire album.

Pedro lives by the Windsor Hotel
sings Lou Reed
looks out a window without glass
The walls are made of cardboard
newspaper under his feet
His father beats him because he's too tired to go out begging
He has nine brothers and sisters
grown up alone and subdued
It's hard to run when you're hit on the thighs with a coat hanger
Pedro dreams of growing up and killing his old man
but it's unlikely because he's heading for that dirty boulevard

The sparse music, built on three chords repeated endlessly, reaches its expressive peak in the final moments: Pedro finds a magic book in a rubbish bin, and hopes that, by counting to three, he can disappear and fly away from that dirty boulevard.