Album: Transformer (1972)

Charted: 45

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• Just a perfect day
  Drink Sangria in the park
  And then later
  When it gets dark, we go home
  
  Just a perfect day
  Feed animals in the zoo
  Then later
  A movie, too, and then home
  
  Oh, it's such a perfect day
  I'm glad I spent it with you
  Oh, such a perfect day
  You just keep me hanging on
  You just keep me hanging on
  
  Just a perfect day
  Problems all left alone
  Weekenders on our own
  It's such fun
  
  Just a perfect day
  You made me forget myself
  I thought I was
  Someone else, someone good
  
  Oh, it's such a perfect day
  I'm glad I spent it with you
  Oh, such a perfect day
  You just keep me hanging on
  You just keep me hanging on
  
  You're going to reap just what you sow
  You're going to reap just what you sow
  You're going to reap just what you sow
  You're going to reap just what you sow Writer/s: Lou Reed
  Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Wise Music Group
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 16

• Padraig from Nowhere In ParticularTeenage me, who knew a fair amount about pulling girls and nothing about drug-use, interpreted it as follows:
  
  Verse 1: The protagonist organizes a "perfect day" for his girl — perfect by average standards, and somewhat beneath himself conceptually. He'd rather be doing something else, but arranges the day for her anyway, expecting something in return. She, however, keeps him "hanging on," in the sense that she doesn't let him in her pants.
  
  Verse 2: The protagonist is back living through the day and realizes that what he'd organized is, in fact, perfect — unexpectedly, for him too. The day's ordinary perfection stirs in him a longing to be a more regular person himself, someone "good." The end of the day is the same: she keeps him hanging on.
  
  The conclusion is directed at her. He organized the day for her, even enjoyed it himself, but it did not lead to what he had wanted. "You're gonna reap just what you sow": by not conforming to his expectations, she is held responsible for the fact that he actively plans to finish the relationship.
  
  Now, more than forty years later, this interpretation still kind of holds. It may not be the strictly correct one, and it is from the viewpoint of a selfish, horny teenage boy with not much in terms of empathy, but it makes sense.
• Hickory Mccay from Portland, OrI always thought this song was especially pretty because it was a contradiction of all the darkness that Lou Reed was known for. Yeah, you can say it's a drug song, but I always thought it was sort of a demonstration of his versatility. All his previous most popular songs (the entire first 2 Velvet Underground records, and to a lesser extent the third) had been either sad or debauched. This song is really neither, which makes it all the more beautiful.
• Craig from PittsburghMy honest opinion after research is that Lou wrote this song about heroin but didn’t want to admit it after the negative vibe he related to the actual song “Heroin.” He had said numerous times that people would come up to him and say “I shot up to Heroin” or “ODed to Heroin.”
  
  I feel it is a person who is trying to “kick” but finally gives in and relapses. As an addict myself, “Perfect Day” is much more symbolic of the life of an addict than the song “Heroin.” It is mellow reflection of how a “fixed” user feels when able to score. It truly is perfect to be holding and not dope sick. It’s “Perfect” to be able to get right and not at this moment do or care about anything.
  
  Then comes the realization. (You’re goin to reap just what you sow.) Although the day was perfect, the realization of what you’ve done is now here. An addict who has somewhat put his life back together and then relapses comes to believe that it’s never gonna stop. You get clean for a little while and then you go back. The understanding that the sowing (shooting up) will lead to the reaping (full-blown addiction, possible incarceration, mental hospitalization, death of relationships, loss of employment, self-degradation, loss of integrity, possible actual death from overdose) is here. And you knew it would lead to this, but just wanted to hit that vein so bad.
  
  Anyway, just my 2 cents.
• Janetlee from Panama City, FlNow Susan Boyle has recorded it. Many folks may not like her cover, but I do. The video is awesome! READ: Susan Boyle and Lou Reed are making beautiful music together following a highly publicized scuffle in which the Velvet Underground front man reportedly denied the "Britain's Got Talent" alum the right to sing a cover of his song, "Perfect Day."Now the duo appear to be thumbing their noses at the press with Reed joining forces with Boyle to make the music video of her cover of "Perfect Day"According to E! Weekly, Reed himself came up with the concept for the atmospheric music video, which features shots of a heavily made up Boyle singing through the mist of Loch Lomond in Scotland.Though it may appear contrived, an insider on the Loreena McKennitt-style video shoot told the Sunday Mail that the weather did in fact boast much fog and "gale force winds.""I wanted to create a beautiful and intimate piece shot in Susan's native Scotland and she quickly agreed," Reed told the British newspaper.Read more: http://bit.ly/2peVW5a
• Fred from Laurel, MdAnd now it's being used in an Olympics-themed TV ad, played during the televising of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games. It's an ad for AT&T ("here's to possibilities"), and the song version they use is the original by Lou Reed. Gretchen Bleiler starts out snowboarding in the half-pipe and propels herself into space. Pity her competition! Wonderful song--Lou always has a sly edge to him--and terrific ad, deliciously surreal!
• Colin from Bracknell, United KingdomIt is absolutely NOTHING to do with drugs, heroin or anything like that!
  Lou Reed is on record countless times stating that this song is about an obsessive ex-lover who wants revenge because they have been dumped. If you listen to the song with this in mind, it becomes obvious whereas there is NOTHING in the song which refers to drugs.
  And before anyone says "Yeah..he would say that as he is hardly going to admit it!".....he wrote the song "Heroin" forgodsakes!!! Essentially, he is saying that this person made him forget all his worries and convinced him that he was worth something and then left, leaving him in despair with only his memories....but they will reap what they sow in the end.
• Budoshi from Sandnessjøen, NorwayFor me it's a tribute to a day that one always want to have, never appreciates when it is there, and misses when it is gone.
  
  In short.. The perfect day when everything is just good.
  
• J from Calgary, AbIt is a song about disappointment. The singer is eternally kept hanging on, but inevitably disappointed - likely because the person did not stay clean from drugs. The "perfect day" is sarcasm, and which is conveyed but the depressing nature of the music and the singer's voice. The singer is , but cleaning the person up - like in the movie Trainspotting where he is dragged to the hospital.
  
  Basically, it is a song you'd sing if you'd left your friend/lover because of his/her drug problem, later taken them back, and then had them ruin an anniversary date in order to go shoot-up.
  
  Basically, not a very happy song. : )
• Andrés from Montevideo, UruguayI agree with Alasdair, it's a song about coming off drugs and that horrible world that are drugs. I think that was a perfect day because he did those things instead of drugs. The phrase "keep me hanging on", in my opinion, refers to stay clean and don't fall back into drugs. Anyway, that's just my view...
• Michael from Heers, BelgiumIt's a drug song indeed. 'You just keep me haning on' but in the end there's still a warning that you reap what you sow. No love song like some would like to believe, all about doing drugs because that's the only thing that keeps someone hanging on.
• Jesse from New York, NyPerfect Day (aswell as "Sweet Jane") were also performed by Lou Reed himself in the Christina Ricci film "Prozac Nation" released in 2001.
• Dave from Sunderland, United StatesLou Reed famously went on record say he thought Durandurans version of the the song was his favorite and much preferred it to his own.
• J from Port Huron, MiIt's a heartbreaker.
• Alasdair from Newdigate, Englandi have heard that its about coming off heroin, although its melencholy nature hints that it may actually be about a heroin trip itself
• Sander from Rotterdam, United StatesThe reason because this song was used in the movie Trainspotting is because this song is about heroin. Someone who scores heroin, and has a trip is havind a "Perfect Day". Sander
• Eugenio from Naxxar, EuropeGreat song can someone tell me the meaning of it, thankyou Eugenio from malta

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