METALLICA And LOU REED: 'Iced Honey' Lyrics Revealed

October 2, 2011

The musical collaboration between Lou Reed and METALLICA, "Lulu", will be released on November 1 in North America via Warner Bros. Records and one day earlier (October 31) in the rest of the world through Universal Music. The CD was co-produced by Reed, METALLICA, Hal Willner who has produced albums for Reed, Marianne Faithfull, and Laurie Anderson, among others and Greg Fidelman. Fidelman also mixed the record.

"Lulu" final track listing:

01. Brandenburg Gate (4:19)
02. The View (5:17)
03. Pumping Blood (7:24)
04. Mistress Dread (6:52)
05. Iced Honey (4:36)
06. Cheat On Me (11:26)
07. Frustration (8:33)
08. Little Dog (8:01)
09. Dragon (11:08)
10. Junior Dad (19:28)

"Iced Honey" lyrics:

You can't put a butterfly in a jar
If the effort's too high no matter who you are
You can't catch the moon, or the sun or the stars
It doesn't matter who you are
Iced honey

Now me I've tried a million tricks
To make life cold and make it stick
Not running heat that flames then out
But the proud piece of ice that always floats
Iced honey

If I can't trap a butterfly or a bee
If I can't keep my heart where I want it to be
If no matter how much soul and heart
I put to the wood
If a flaming heart is not that good
Iced honey

If you can't put a butterfly in a jar
If violence mars your final hour
If you make others feel like jam
Poured on a piece of charbroiled lamb

If it's all mixed up and you cannot shout
And your oxygen starts to run out
If your final gasp has the recipe wrong
And instead of hello you say so long

If your energy starts to leak out
And people wonder what you're all about
A heartbreaker with an unattached heart
The story of love gives them all a start

And me, I've always been this way
Not by choice, just this way
I can't put my honey pot in a jar
Or a heart or a fist of some young boy

If you can't put a butterfly in a jar
No wonder no need to wonder where you are
It might seem like Hell, the river Styx
Your affection never sticks

No matter what you say, no matter what you do
A butterfly heart flies right past you
There's nothing to say, nothing to do
See if the ice will melt for you
Iced honey [End of lyrics]

The deluxe version of "Lulu", which will come in a tube-shaped container measuring 13 centimeters x 1.24 meters, will include the following:

* 2xCD digipack package
* A large 1.2 m x 1.6 m poster (with song lyrics)
* 3 photographs by Anton Corbijn (50 cm x 50.8 cm)

Check out photos of the "Lulu" deluxe edition below.

The idea for these two giants of modern music to work together was born after the 25th anniversary Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame concerts in New York City in October 2009. METALLICA singer/guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo played with Reed on VELVET UNDERGROUND classics "Sweet Jane" and "White Light/White Heat". "We knew from then that we were made for each other," Reed says.

After that triumphant performance, Reed suggested they all make a record together. At first they planned to record an album of Reedfraven's older material, what Ulrich describes as "some of Lou's lost jewels songs that he felt he'd like to give a second spin, and we could do whatever it is we do to some of those songs." That idea "hung in the air for a couple of months." Then, a week or two before that session was to begin, "Lou called up and said, 'Listen, I have this other idea.'"

That idea was to record a series of songs Reed had written for American avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson and German theater group the Berliner Ensemble's production of the "Lulu Plays", which premiered in April at the Theatre am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, founded by Bertolt Brecht. The songs are inspired by German expressionist Frank Wedekind's early 20th century plays "Earth Spirit" and "Pandora's Box", and were a rewrite of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", which emerged as a graphic novel on Fantagraphics Press.

"We were very interested in working with Lou," says Hetfield. "I had these giant question marks: What's it going to be like? What's going to happen? So it was great when he sent us the lyrics for the 'Lulu' body of work. It was something we could sink our teeth into. I could take off my singer and lyricist hat and concentrate on the music part. These were very potent lyrics, with a soundscape behind them for atmosphere. Lars and I sat there with an acoustic and let this blank canvas take us where it needed to go. It was a great gift, to be asked to stamp 'TALLICA on it. And that's what we did."

"We had to bring 'Lulu' to life in a sophisticated way, using rock," Reed says. "And the hardest power rock you could come up with would have to be METALLICA. They live on that planet. We played together, and I knew it: dream come true. This is the best thing I ever did. And I did it with the best group I could possibly find. By definition, everybody involved was honest. This has come into the world pure. We pushed as far as we possibly could within the realms of reality."

"It's definitely not a METALLICA album, or a Lou Reed album," adds Hammett. "It's something else. It's a new animal, a hybrid."

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