Salman Rushdie reveals Lou Reed told him famous song was intended for a musical

Author Sir Salman Rushdie has revealed his late friend, singer Lou Reed, told him one of his best known songs Walk On The Wild side was intended for a musical.

The 78-year-old said The Velvet Underground frontman had intended the song, from his 1972 album, Transformer, for use in a musical adaption of author Nelson Algren’s novel Walk On The Wild Side.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Sir Salman said: “It’s kind of extraordinary to be able to say that I was friends with Lou Reed because when I was at college, I kind of worshipped The Velvet Underground.

“And the idea that I would end up with Lou Reed’s phone number never occurred to me.

“Originally, it (Walk On The Wild Side) was written to go as the title track of this Nelson Algren musical, based on Nelson Algren’s novel, Walk On The Wild Side.

“And then the musical fell apart, never happened, and so he rewrote (it), the music is the same, but he rewrote the lyrics, dropping the characters from the novel, and replacing them with characters from the (Andy) Warhol Factory.

He chose the song as one of his Desert Island Discs, along with Bob Dylan’s Blowing In The Wind and The Rolling Stones (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.

The author went on to say that he almost met Algren, but found out he had died while he was on the way to a party he was hosting.

Sir Salman added: “It’s very strange because Nelson Algren, I almost met.

“He reviewed Midnight Children when it came out, he reviewed it in the Chicago Tribune, and I had gone out to spend a weekend with friends on Long Island, and they had been invited to Nelson Algren’s house-warming party, and they said, ‘well, you better come, because I’m sure he’d like to meet you’.

“But then the tragedy happened that it was discovered that he had died.

“The party was all laid out and prepared, and he had a colossal heart attack and died on the rug in the middle of the room, and the first guests to arrive found the host dead on the floor. So I never met Nelson Algren, but almost.”

Sir Salman released The Eleventh Hour, earlier this month, a collection of stories from around the world, set in Bombay neighbourhoods and English universities, which is his first fiction book in nearly three years.

His novels include Midnight’s Children, for which he won the Booker Prize, The Satanic Verses, and Quichotte, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Released in September 1988, The Satanic Verses prompted then Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa calling for Sir Salman’s death in 1989 after publication of the novel, which some Muslims consider blasphemous.

Sir Salman spent years in hiding, but after Iran later announced it would not enforce the decree, he has travelled freely over the past quarter of a century.

The Indian-British Booker Prize-winning writer was left blind in one eye following a 2022 knife attack at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state.