
17 - Men of Good Fortune
Men of Good Fortune – Lou Reed “Men of Good Fortune” is a Lou Reed song from his 1973 concept album Berlin. In Reed’s catalog, it feels like a bitter, unflinching meditation on privilege and complacency—where the “men of good fortune” aren’t heroes, but the comfortable and the willfully blind, content in their safety while others suffer: part indictment, part warning, often both at once. Context Berlin is a landmark in Reed’s discography—more theatrical and emotionally devastating than the glam rock experimentation many people associated with his earlier work. That edge fits “Men of Good Fortune” well: the song plays like an accusation that won’t be softened, unfolding in real time through stark imagery and class resentment. Reed weaves social critique and personal disgust together, transforming a simple observation about the privileged into something scalding and morally uncompromising. ...



