Lyrics to
Downtown Dirt

This version of Downtown Dirt was released by Lou Reed in 1975.

Our About Lou Reed page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for Downtown Dirt from 1975 as well as all of the other lyrics from Lou Reed that we have in our lyrics database.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Lou Reed or about the 1970s in general.

Picking up pieces of information
Down on the docks
Picking up pieces of information about you
And how to pick locks
Scouting around on the Lower East Side and matresses in the rain
Those uptown ladies with their uptown coats
Come down here to get laid
It’s a boring macho trip
And I’m the type that fascinates
Hey, Mrs Pamela Brown, how’s the Dakota?
You’re twenty eight years old and your face has been lifted
But you still look so much older
You been desoiled and your linen is drab,
You’ve got the crabs
The things they sell you
Your credit cards
I love you for it
I love you for it
Sell your sugar
I’m a humanitarian
I give it all to myself
That way you’re clean
And I stay out of debt
And psychologically you know
Hey, psychologically it’s better that I think that I’m dirt
Psychologically it’s better that I think that I’m dirt
Don’t you know it’s better to think I’m dirt
Don’t you like to have some dirt
That all it’s worth it’s just dirt
Cheap
Cheap damn dirt
Hey Pam, dirt
Cheap dirt
Dirt
Uptown dirt
Dirt

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Lou Reed has released many songs over the years besides Downtown Dirt. Lou Reed released songs from 1972 to 2000 spanning across albums like Transformer, Lou Reed, Berlin, Sally Can't Dance, Rock 'n' Roll Animal, Coney Island Baby, Rock And Roll Heart, Street Hassle, The Bells, Growing Up In Public, The Blue Mask, Legendary Hearts, New Sensations, Mistrial, New York, Magic And Loss, Set The Twilight Reeling, and Ecstasy. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Lou Reed.

If you're a fan of popular 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1975 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Downtown Dirt by Lou Reed

When you decide to study the lyrics to Downtown Dirt, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1975 song by Lou Reed. Some of the lyrics to Downtown Dirt have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Lou Reed and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Downtown Dirt if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Downtown Dirt" means the words set to the music of Downtown Dirt, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Lou Reed. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Downtown Dirt and the lyrics to Downtown Dirt are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Lou Reed who came here looking just for the lyrics to Downtown Dirt, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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