The Velvet Forum

Hello Velvetheads,

Just wondering if any of you know which ageing film star Reed is refferring to in "new age", is he talking about one crestfallen fat blonde actress in particular or is she more like a fictional character in the vein of "Sunset Boulevard"?

well if nobody is able to answer:

paths of pain and jewels of glory are films unknown to imdb. and if one would mix the titles to get kubricks paths of glory, well jewels of pain isn't a film either. as for robert mitchum: if he kissed but one girl / film there are about 132 possible actresses. so i think no luck this way.

if you consider the early version, frank & nancy might be a sinatra reference. but what should it significate? i don't know.
martin

That song's about Hollywood misfit Frances Farmer, who took a lot of pain in her life. Apparently "New Age" was supposed to feature the lyrics from the 1969 live album, when Reed learned about Farmer's death and wrote "New Age" mark 2, just before the beginning of the engagement at Max's. And no, she never appeared in a Robert Mitchum movie. That was just for the rhyme, honey.

paddy wrote:That song's about Hollywood misfit Frances Farmer, who took a lot of pain in her life

And Reed isn't the only tortured singer songwriter who was fascinated by Farmer--Kurt Cobain named his daughter after her

Doctor Bob wrote:

paddy wrote:That song's about Hollywood misfit Frances Farmer, who took a lot of pain in her life

And Reed isn't the only tortured singer songwriter who was fascinated by Farmer--Kurt Cobain named his daughter after her

...and wrote the song Francis Farmer will have her revenge on Seattle.

I've never heard Frances Farmer mentioned in connection with New Age before - she's a different generation to Mitchum and Kubrick, she left Hollywood before WW2, and she wasn't really blonde (not much of the time anyway) or fat either. Previous discussions of this vague subject have suggested Shelley Winters, at least that's the image the song conjures up for me. I don't really think it's anyone in particular though, the songs are rarely that literal, especially as we know there were several iterations of the lyrics.

Where did you get yr info, Paddy? Farmer didn't die until Aug 1, either, Loaded was recorded between April & July.

I'm not being pedantic, I just don't want this to be the new 'fact' about New Age, and you sound so sure....

Well, sorry, I didn't mean to sound so sure you know.
I read that years ago, around the time "Loaded" was released on CD for the first time, I remember the review stated Lou Reed felt a strong connection with Frances Barber because of her terrible fate and because of the fact they both had the "privilege" to experience shock therapy.
I'm not a Frances-Farmer specialist and it's not like I want to be the one who's right at all cost but it seems that at the end of her life, she had put on a lot of weight and her hair was blonde. Then again, if you tell me she died on August the 1st, there's definitely a problem here. Do you know how she died? Maybe Reed had heard that she was dying. Maybe you're right and "New age" isn't about Frances Farmer at all.

It could still be her, I guess, although her own experiences in the mental health system were many times worse than Lou's. She died in obscurity of cancer, but it could be he read something about her illness or whatever before she died.
The song reads more like its about a lonely older actress rather than someone who was raped, brutalized and lobotomised, but then again, it seems that as well as being an ECT patient she was an ampetamine addict at one point. I can see how Lou would feel some empathy with her, but I don't feel it in this song.