METALLICA And LOU REED: 'Pumping Blood' Lyrics Revealed

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)

"Pumping Blood" lyrics:

If I pump out blood in the sunshine
Oil on the wheel
That is blasted and busted away

A nail or a little piece of glass
A little piece of glass
A little piece of glass
Swarming like bees over the air
Off the pump off the thing
The blood that I'm pumping away

Like bees over the air
Off the pump
Off the thing
The blood that I'm pumping away

Off the pump
Off the thing
The blood that I'm pumping away

If I pump blood in the sunshine
And you wear a leather box with azaleas
And I pump more blood
And it seeps through my skin
Will you adore the river
The stream, the trickle
The tributary of my heart

As I pump more blood
And it seeps through my skin

Will you adore the river
The stream, the trickle
The tributary of my heart

If I'm pumping blood
Like a common state worker
If I waggle my ass like a dark prostitute
Would you think less of me

And my coagulating heart

Waggle my ass like a dark prostitute
Coagulating heart
Pumping blood

Would you top me off
Would you top me off as I deepen a curtsy
While you yell out, "mercy"
We grow apart
Would you rip and cut me

Use a knife on me

Be shocked at the boldness
The coldness of this little heart
Tied up in leather
Would you take the measure
Of the blood that I pump
In the manic confusion of love

Supreme violation
Supreme violation
"Oh, ah, ah, ah Jack I beseech you"

"Oh Jack I beseech you"
Supreme violation

Blood in the foyer
The bathroom
The tea room
The kitchen, with her knives splayed

I will swallow your sharpest cutter
Like a colored man's dick

Blood spurting from me
"Oh Jack, Jack I beseech"
"Jack, I beseech you, I beseech"
In the end it was an ordinary heart

"Oh Jack I beseech you"
As I scream out my pain
In the end it was an ordinary heart

In the end, in the end, in the end
It was an ordinary heart

"Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack I beseech you"
Supreme violation . . . Oh

"Jack, Jack, Jack I beseech you"
I call out your name

Blood in the foyer, the bathroom,
The tea room, the kitchen
And knives splayed
I swallow your sharpest cutter
Like a colored man's dick
Blood spurting from me
Blood spurting from me

"Oh Jack"

"Oh Jack, I beseech ya"
In the end it was an ordinary heart

In the end it was an ordinary heart
Pumping blood [End of lyrics]

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."

A variety of physical "Lulu" releases are available for pre-order at LouReedMetallica.com:

** 2CD Package - $19.99

Contents: Double CD with 24-page booklet including all lyrics.

** Deluxe 2CD Poster Set - $119.99

Contents: Limited-run tube including a poster of the "Lulu" mannequin and song lyrics, three high-quality prints of Anton Corbijn photos of Lou Reed and METALLICA, and the double CD of "Lulu" in a unique folding slipcase. Each tube is numbered. Dimensions of the tube are approximately 5.5 inches in diameter by 49 inches long.

** Deluxe Book 2CD - $109.99

Contents: Limited-run two-book set, each book 12" x 12" square bound with a hard cover. The Anton Corbijn book is 20 pages of photos taken of Lou Reed and METALLICA in Gothenburg, Sweden in the summer of 2011. The lyric book is 28 pages with lyrics from each song along with imagery from the objects collection of WerkbundarchiV Museum Der Dinge, Berlin, Germany. The two "Lulu" CDs are also included in the lyric book. All housed in a clear plastic slipcase.

** Vinyl 2LP Set

2CD Package

Deluxe 2CD Poster Set

Deluxe Book 2CD