A few weeks ago I was on vacation visiting Ellicott City, Maryland with some family and heard Lou Reed’s odd, haunting 1972 song “Satellite of Love” playing in a shop, and it got me thinking about that song. Fans of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” of course know the Satellite of Love as the space station where the show’s protagonist is imprisoned and forced to watch cheesy movies.
But in the sparse, enigmatic lyrics of the song that the name came from, it seems to be some spacecraft whose televised launch the narrator is watching, while having various idle thoughts. Why a Satellite of Love? The song doesn’t say, but the bridge provides a possible clue: he is having dark, jealous thoughts about a lover who he believes is cheating on him. Perhaps we are meant to draw an analogy between the satellite flying into space, and the lover running away from him.
According to Wikipedia ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_of_Love ), Reed wrote “Satellite of Love” around 1970 and originally recorded it with the Velvet Underground, though that recording never saw the light of day until decades later; the song was first released on Reed’s 1972 solo album Transformer, with David Bowie providing some of the backing vocals. In a YouTube video cited there, VU member Doug Yule describes Reed pitching the song in mid-1970 with reference to “the satellite that had just gone up which was a big deal in the news at the time, cause the space race was happening”.
This quote, of course, piqued my interest. Was the Satellite of Love a specific real satellite? [1/n]
Matt McIrvin /
npub1xf…wru85
2023-09-02 02:02:04
Author Public Key
npub1xfg79gwvqvmpuh949ejdn2fp8asheyd52eu0pnh36tm9q0zgnv0sgwru85Published at
2023-09-02 02:02:04Event JSON
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"content": "A few weeks ago I was on vacation visiting Ellicott City, Maryland with some family and heard Lou Reed’s odd, haunting 1972 song “Satellite of Love” playing in a shop, and it got me thinking about that song. Fans of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” of course know the Satellite of Love as the space station where the show’s protagonist is imprisoned and forced to watch cheesy movies.\n\nBut in the sparse, enigmatic lyrics of the song that the name came from, it seems to be some spacecraft whose televised launch the narrator is watching, while having various idle thoughts. Why a Satellite of Love? The song doesn’t say, but the bridge provides a possible clue: he is having dark, jealous thoughts about a lover who he believes is cheating on him. Perhaps we are meant to draw an analogy between the satellite flying into space, and the lover running away from him.\n\nAccording to Wikipedia ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_of_Love ), Reed wrote “Satellite of Love” around 1970 and originally recorded it with the Velvet Underground, though that recording never saw the light of day until decades later; the song was first released on Reed’s 1972 solo album Transformer, with David Bowie providing some of the backing vocals. In a YouTube video cited there, VU member Doug Yule describes Reed pitching the song in mid-1970 with reference to “the satellite that had just gone up which was a big deal in the news at the time, cause the space race was happening”.\n\nThis quote, of course, piqued my interest. Was the Satellite of Love a specific real satellite? [1/n]",
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