The Blue Mask

Production and recording

Reed and Robert Quine's guitars were mixed separately in the right and left stereo channels respectively. To differentiate his guitar's sound from Reed's, Quine used D tuning, playing each song as if it was one major second lower. For example, "Heavenly Arms" is in G major, so Quine used fingerings for A major to play the song.

Quine, who years earlier followed the Velvet Underground across the country and taped several of their early shows (they were later released as Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes), was a perfect complement to Reed. Quine also toured in support of the album and can be seen on the recorded The Bottom Line show titled A Night with Lou Reed. The album contains no instrumental overdubs with the exception of Reed's guitar on "My House", but all vocals were overdubbed with the exception of "The Heroine".

Longtime Reed collaborator Fernando Saunders plays the bass and adds backing vocals (most noticeably, a falsetto refrain in the outro to "Heavenly Arms") to this album and can also be seen in A Night with Lou Reed. In 2000, a remastered version of The Blue Mask was released. Quine and Reed share the distinction of being named to Rolling Stone's Top 100 Guitarists of All-Time List. The drummer for the album was the studio ace Doane Perry who later joined Jethro Tull.

The album cover was designed by Reed's then wife, Sylvia, and features a blue version of a photograph by Mick Rock from the cover art of 1972's Transformer.

Track listing

All songs written by Lou Reed.

1. "My House" - 5:25
2. "Women" - 4:57
3. "Underneath the Bottle" - 2:33
4. "The Gun" - 3:41
5. "The Blue Mask" - 5:06

1. "Average Guy" - 3:12
2. "The Heroine" - 3:06
3. "Waves of Fear" - 4:11
4. "The Day John Kennedy Died" - 4:08
5. "Heavenly Arms" - 4:47

Personnel