“I never said I was tasteful”

The humor of Lou Reed, both as a member of the Velvet Underground and as a solo artist, shows evidence of the three major categories comprising the philosophy of humor—Superiority Theory, Incongruity Theory, and Relief Theory. In his music and live monologues, Reed was a rock humorist who could at one point be heard laughing at the end of a song about heroin’s destructiveness and at another point delivering a hilarious attack on well-known rock journalists. From dry and ironical to raunchy and tasteless, Reed’s humor leavened dark and often cynical songs about taboo topics.