The fine folks at Light In The Attic did a wonderful spread-the-word promotional service by sending out these flexi-discs to drop the news of their upcoming Lou Reed archival series.

Classy move. I'm only slightly jealous.

The demo itself is just about the most Dylan-sounding thing I could ever imagine to hear from Lou, yet totally devoid of any of the seedy punk underpinnings that would appear on the eventual released version of the song. The vocal harmonizing with John Cale, the wheezy harmonica trucking through the solo portions...it's all very charmed.

I used to LIVE for the demo, the unheard, the unreleased. As I've aged, they've become less and less appealing. They're usually only demos (or unreleased) for a reason. But this one...I gotta give due credit, I think it truly informs and sheds light. It gets me excited. Knowing that there's a trove of this stuff ready to roll out in another month or so...it's the first limited edition of a record that I've pre-ordered in quite some time. I hope the archive runs deep, because I'm at attention ready to tune into more.