"He was dying," Reed's wife Laurie Anderson told The Times of London.

"It's as serious as it gets.  You don't get a transplant for fun."

"I don't think he'll ever totally recover from this," she added.

The founder of the Velvet Underground had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse. and even wrote a song called Heroin.

"I take drugs just because, in the 20th century, in a technological age living in the city, there are certain drugs you have to take just to keep yourself normal like a caveman, just to bring yourself up or