Legendary Jewish rocker Lou Reed passed away this weekend at age 71, and since the news broke there has been a flurry of digital tributes.
Among them are Tweets from Jewish stars like Bette Midler, Richard Lewis and Judd Apatow, a piece about how the musician influenced one yeshiva student, and a link to a clip of Reed doing “Good Evening Mr. Waldheim.”
We’d like to add something to the fray — a video too, but one in which Reed is performing not in a concert venue, but, instead, at a Passover meal.
Here, at the Downtown Seder in 2004, he reads from a play he wrote called “The Raven,” based on Edgar Allan Poe’s poem of the same name.
“I’d like to leave this body and be free,” Reed recited in front of the crowd of fellow Seder goers. “I’d like to float like a mystic child, I’d like to kiss an angel on the brow.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.