In 2019, eight years after his last studio release (“Old School”), Nils Lofgren reached back into the archives for six songs he recorded with Lou Reed and put those together with four songs of his own on the album “Blue with Lou”. For his fans who weren’t expecting new music, it came as a pleasant surprise, just as it was for those of us who found his music a breath of fresh air, simple, direct and emotional. It was easily the best Nils in years and a respite from toiling on guitar in the E Street Band.
In an interview, Lofgren recalled of Reed: “Intellectually, we all understand nobody’s around forever. But you always think that someday we’ll get out and play, someday I’ll get to do that. And then bang, you know, you don’t get to do that anymore. But at least I had these songs to resurrect and share”.
Lofgren and Reed first worked together on Reed’s “The Bells” album back in 1979, and then after that on Nils’ eponymous release. “Blue with Lou” goes full circle back to the rich, warm sound of early years – ‘Don’t Let Your Guard Down’ could have appeared on a Grin album. You could almost envision the younger Lofgren doing backflips on a trampoline, which were a staple of his shows in the 1970s.
What we are interested in for the purposes of this article is the penultimate song on the album – ‘Dear Heartbreaker’ – while also mentioning its twin tribute to the loss of Lofgren’s beloved dog of fourteen years, Groucho (‘Remember Me’).
In the wake of these and other losses, he felt more compelled than ever to make the album. The earnest paean to Tom Petty finds Lofgren in the throes of sorrow: “By and by, too many gone/And life’s song not quite the same”.
Lofgren termed this record a blues album not only because of the deaths around him but seeing a lot of people he knew struggling mightily. “It deals with the dignity of what you had”, he said. “Tom Petty was a big hero of mine, and I just wasn’t planning on writing that song about him. Amy (his wife) and I, both huge fans, would always see the Heartbreakers when they came to Phoenix”.
Petty & The Heartbreakers actually opened for Lofgren in 1977 on the “Night After Night” tour. It was just before Petty broke out big time with the “Damn the Torpedoes” album. Lofgren stayed friends with Heartbreakers’ keyboardist Benmont Tench, who hooked up Nils and his wife with tickets to Petty’s show at Red Rocks in 2017. “Amy and I treated ourselves to a trip up there and saw an amazing show. We got to say hi to everyone in the band and reminisce a bit”. Five months later Petty died.
“One day after Tom died, I was in the guest room writing”, Lofgren remembered. “My dogs were hanging around. It was interesting. For a long time, Amy and I would actually curse out loud every day about Tom’s passing. We were really pissed off about it and very hurt, as millions of people were. But one day I just started singing a couple of lines. It was almost like a little prayer. Every other day or so I’d just sing a little nod to Tom’s loss and all of a sudden two more lines, and then I’d get an idea for another line. I’d just jot ‘em down in a notebook. Over a couple weeks I had a lot of lyrics, and I thought, ‘Is this gonna be a song?’ Anyway, it turned out to be ‘Dear Heartbreaker’.”
‘Dear Heartbreaker’ is a sweet, spry little number paying tribute to his late friend. Such tributes can be winsome, but this one is different; instead of sorrow, it reflects how music can live on and carry the legacy of its creator well after their demise. Blending lyrics that reference his friend to a melody that very subtly recalls ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken’. It’s a moving yet honourable tribute to a fallen comrade. Lofgren does not deliver vocal acrobatics and no extreme exercises on the guitar. The song comes over as almost casual. You don’t have the impression at any point that he wants to impress at all costs with his flashes of Fender magic.
Music allows for the continuation of the spirit, often crafting a particular type of catharsis that will make you want to cry and dance and tear out your hair all at once. “So the flesh and body’s gone/In the wind, so it goes/Still he’s not backin’ down/And the music lights our souls”. Between its themes of stunning grief and remembrance, Lofgren sings despondently over tender guitar. It feels as if you are listening through a pane of rain-streaked glass, staring longingly out at what once was. It was time to do some yearning, and it would be surprising if any listener wasn’t affected by a tinge of ‘Moon Tears’.
