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Is it possible, Laurie Anderson
wonders midway through Heart of
a Dog, to feel sad without actually
being sad? “To feel sad,” she repeats,
“without actually being sad.” The
feat, she confesses, is “actually really
hard to do.” In the context of the
largely spoken-word record, she’s
paraphrasing her mediation teacher.
A couple, Anderson tells us, has just
gone through a divorce, and a dog,
Lolabelle, gets caught in the middle of
the separation. The man doesn’t want
Lolabelle. The woman doesn’t want
her, either. What’s a poor rat terrier to
do? Lolabelle, Anderson concludes,
learns to feel empathy.
Laurie Anderson
Heart of a Dog
Nonesuch, CD
The tale is one of the many stories-withina-story
on Heart of a Dog, an album that’s a
companion piece to a film of the same name
that hit the festival circuit in 2015 and debuts
on HBO in early 2016. Anderson’s narrative,
like all of them here, deals with loss. There are
stories about the loss of a parent, the loss of
a pet, the loss of a loved one, the loss of naivety,
and the loss of trust. But they’re really all
stories about life, about how we live and we
forget, and how what we choose to remember
can not only haunt us but also trick us. The
mind is powerful, but deceitful. “We still have
no idea why we dream,” Anderson softly utters.
Heart of a Dog, commissioned by the European
TV network Arte, is told in fragments.
It’s often surreal, but reality has a way of
intruding in jarring ways. The terrorist attacks
of September 11 figure heavily into
the whole. They jostle Anderson from escaping
into her mind, where Lolabelle has
become a grand pianist who entertains
crowds at a charity ball. The past, real
and imagined, gets mixed up. At times,
Heart of a Dog serves a love letter to the
companionship of a pet. Anderson even
concocts a scene in which she gives birth
to Lolabelle. At other times, Heart of a
Dog functions as an examination of how
we grieve—and why we feel so much guilt
when we do. Anderson’s time with Lolabelle
provides the filter and frame.
The absorbing work is an essay more
than it is an album, and one flush with
vivid scenes. When Anderson tells of a
childhood tragedy that fueled her skepticism
and resolve, she does so with powerful
images that are as emotional as they
are illustrative. Bed-ridden in the children’s
world of a hospital, we feel angst when
Anderson is read stories targeted for a
much younger set, and we pause when
Anderson confesses she “cleaned” the
story up for public consumption. That is,
she made it about her own anxieties and
needs, and left out the horrors of the situation.
Such existential tug-o-war, between
empathy and selfishness as well as our
own needs versus those around us, fuels
Heart of a Dog.
Throughout, Anderson’s phrasing is
careful and her tone welcoming. She never
once deviates to heighten the drama. Left
largely unspoken is the shadow of her late
husband, the great Velvet Underground
architect Lou Reed, who died in 2013
while Anderson was at work on the project.
Reed’s “Turning Time Around” closes
the album. It’s a sadly optimistic coda, one
on which Reed sings of love’s indefinable
nature with patience. (continued)
24 TONE AUDIO NO.75
November 2015 25