by bill | Nov 14, 2023 | Because he's David Bowie, that's why |
I vaguely remember looking over the track listing of The Next Day before it had come out and noticing that there was a song called “Valentine’s Day.” Bowie being Bowie, it seemed unlikely that this would be a Hallmark moment.
And indeed, though on the surface “Valentine’s Day” is one of the poppier numbers on the album, underneath it is a pretty grim piece of work. Without ever actually coming out and saying it, David gradually lets us know that Valentine is a psychotic school shooter, and his “day” is the one on which he will carry out his killing spree — and, as these things go, probably end up dying himself.
It is perverse and perfect. Says O’Leary:
It wouldn’t be as chilling if Bowie hadn’t made the song so catchy, with his Beatles chorus vocals (compare his ooo-la-la-las to those of “You Won’t See Me”) and [Ear] Slick’s guitar arpeggio fills. Even the line about Valentine’s victims — “Teddy and Judy down”—has a sad Sixties echo to it, calling back to Ray Davies’ Terry and Julie in “Waterloo Sunset“; in a brighter time, the song could have been about them, a pair of lovers trying to work things out. Instead they’re just bodies lying in a classroom.
(more…) by bill | Nov 13, 2023 | Because he's David Bowie, that's why |
A track that seems as if Bowie used a Waring blender to make it, “(You Will) Set the World on Fire” is set in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s yet has a garish rock-show arrangement. Its title is a would-be manager’s promise of fame but it’s also advice given by St. Catherine of Siena.
—Chris O’Leary, Pushing Ahead of the Dame blog, 2015
If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire!
—St. Catherine of Siena, Letter 368, circa 1380
I really like this one. Musically, it’s pure, gut-level rock’n’roll of a type that Bowie has done rarely, and done well even less. Like the best possible iteration of Tin Machine. Lyrically, I love the sheer perversity of lyrics about the Village folk scene set to such metallic backing. I mean, what could he possibly have been thinking? Why? Then again why not?
—Pushing Ahead of the Dame commenter “Billter,” 2015
(more…) by bill | Nov 12, 2023 | Because he's David Bowie, that's why |
Time is short today, and so is this video — just over a minute:
Quick factoid: Aside from the drum loop, David played all the instruments on this, overdubbing himself Prince-style. That’s all for now.
by bill | Nov 11, 2023 | Read it in books |
In honor of Kurt Vonnegut’s 101st birthday today, I’m taking a break from the ongoing Bowie thread to talk about something I just read.
The first story in Look at the Birdie, “Confido” — which was written, but not published, sometime in the early 1950s — is about a handyman who works for a company that makes hearing aids. In the course of tinkering with microphones and speakers, he accidentally invents a machine that talks to you. He describes it to his wife like this:
“What is it every person really wants, more than food almost?” Henry had asked coyly, showing her Confido for the first time. He was a tall, rustic man, ordinarily as shy as a woods creature. But something had changed him, made him fiery and loud. “What is it?”
“Happiness, Henry?”
“Happiness, certainly! But what’s the key to happiness?”
“Religion? Security, Henry? Health, dear?”
“What is the longing you see in the eyes of strangers on the street, in eyes wherever you look?”
“You tell me, Henry. I give up.” Ellen had said helplessly.
“Somebody to talk to! Somebody who really understands! That’s what.” He’d waved Confido over his head. “And this is it!”
After this conversation Henry goes to work, leaving Ellen alone with Confido — who, it turns out, is a horrible gossip with an endless string of snarky things to say about the neighbors. When the kids come home from school, she is still in her housecoat, knee-deep in slander.
(more…) by bill | Nov 10, 2023 | Because he's David Bowie, that's why |
This morning I rewatched the “I’d Rather Be High”/Louis Vuitton thing and I have some thoughts.
- First off, what do we call it exactly? A commercial short film? A music video with product placement? It seems like it might actually be a couple of 30-second spots followed by a full run through the song. Not that it really matters what we call it; from this vantage it is a bizarre slice of late-early-21st-century culture.
- As I read the lyrics today, I am thinking this song is the dying reverie of a teenage soldier who spent too much of his short life reading. Which makes it all the more a perverse choice for a high-gloss fashion shoot. And I mean “perverse” in the best possible way — there is our old friend Bowie, up to his old tricks again, sneaking his morbid/sexy weirdness into the mainstream.
- David’s mouth never syncs up with the music, which has to be a conscious choice by the director. Is he trying to make some kind of comment about time? Clearly Art is being attempted here; as the video goes on, we start to see the camera crew and makeup artists. (“A hedge fund manager’s idea of surrealism,” sniffs O’Leary.)
- I had not previously watched the very end of the clip, wherein the bit from the “Love Is Lost” video with David washing his hands in his bathroom is reprised. This has to mean something; like, he was washing his hands of the whole thing, preparing even then for his move to the next bardo?
Next up on the hit parade is “Dirty Boys,” which for my money is one of late-stage Bowie’s best songs. It’s an outlier in a couple ways: for one, it sounds different from everything else on The Next Day, built on a Morphine-esque bass-and-sax dialogue. (The stabbing guitar that keeps barging in is in thrall to Robert Fripp’s work on Scary Monsters.)
(more…)