The Next Da(y)vid. Happy Birthday, Mr. Bowie.

Last year (2013 is ‘last year’ now), this genius released his latest album.
Musician. Singer, songwriter, guitarist, saxophonist, a brilliant, brilliant actor, sex object, teen-and-adult idol and Goblin King extraordinaire, David Bowie, is 67 today. Fifty years since the man has been making music and it only gets better.
Although most non-Bowie listeners will know him by ‘Ground Control to Major Tom‘ (which is actually Space Oddity, thank you very much!) his debut album was the eponymous David Bowie, released in 1967. For those who have heard a lot of Bowie’s later stuff – Space Oddity, Ziggy Stardust, Life on Mars (the usual suspects), David Bowie will sound rather unfamiliar. Less surrealist and folksy than the more mature Bowie-image that has come to be legend, a number of songs on the album are very 60s and represent London [London Boy, Maid of Bond Street (one of my personal favourites on the album)]. Love You Till Tuesday is wonderfully candyflossy, youthful, and in all honesty, downright adorable. A simple melody from a lover to the one he loves, about how smitten he is. The simplicity of the melody and the lyrics make you fall in love with them.
While David Bowie might seem unlike Ziggy, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke, or even the David Bowie of today, it was not as detached as it seems. A special Bowie skill, one that one sees in very few musicians today, is the ability to paint extremely vivid, almost tangible pictures with palpable emotions, telling entire stories in song (or in Bowie’s case, extend characters through them, even).
This is evident in Come and Buy my Toys, which has simple lyrics, some beautiful folksy fingerpicking in the background. Seemingly innocuous, innocent lyrics paint deeper, darker, sadder pictures than those that are apparent. Maid of Bond Street paints a picture of glitzy London, of an actress on the train from Paddington to Oxford Circus (while on that journey myself, I hummed the tune and grinned to myself. The man looking at me must have assumed I was a lunatic. Oh well), but in a few lines shows the emptiness of her life, of life itself.
Macabre images that one would see in later Bowie work (certain songs on Hunky Dory, a fair number on Aladdin Sane) began cropping up early on – a prime example is Please Mr. Gravedigger, just pure vocals and sound effects – the rain in the background. While nothing like it melodically, the lyrics are reminiscent of a beautiful song by a certain Paul McCartney, released only a year prior.
We Are Hungry Men steps into extremely dark realms, all the while beneath a melodic exterior that seems quick, rhythmic, and perhaps incongruous with its lyrics that allude to cannibalism and explicitly refer to infanticide and slaughter. He talks of a messiah, a persona that will crop up in his later music as well, along with the idea and nature of being detached from humanity, an observer from up above – whether an alien or an astronaut, an otherwoldly being, or just a starman.
Tags: Aladdin Sane, bond street, Bowie, David Bowie, David Jones, Drive-In Saturday, Duncan Jones, Elvis, england, Hunky Dory, jake gyllenhaal, January, Kevin Spacey, Lady Grinning Soul, London, maid of bond street, Marc Bolan, Mick Ronson, moon, Oxford Circus, oxford street, Paul McCartney, source code, Space Oddity, The Next Day, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Thin White Duke, Ziggy Stardust
About abohemiansrhapsody
Writer, reader, musician, crossword puzzle addict, social scientist, funnywoman, traveller and Beatlemaniac extraordinaire, I enjoy the first of those things the most. Editor and writer at Sportskeeda.com, loving what I do and doing what I love. Formula One, tennis and running editor, Ayrton Senna fan. I write about society, culture, feminism, politics, economics, film, advertising, of things that affect the world at large. I love to sing, and play the piano and a bit of guitar. I also love taking photos. Of anything and everything. My food, a dog on the street, a panhandler, a piece of trash. If I likes, I strikes. Whenever and wherever the inspiration strikes. When I'm not writing news articles, blogs and essays, I like working on a bit of fiction. You can find my short stories and other general musings at: www.anuthebeatlegirl.blogspot.com or http://anuthebeatlegirl.wordpress.com My photography and poetry at: http://www.schizoiddeviant.deviantart.com And my music at: http://www.youtube.com/anu26012 responses to “The Next Da(y)vid. Happy Birthday, Mr. Bowie.”
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Are you serious, what makes you think life with one’s parents and siblings is NOT a life of one’s own choice/calling.
That amazes me to no extent. This man really needs to grow a spine else he will just squander off all his earnings/savings on luxury holidays to ‘please’ his wife.
Go and find a better job, man. Have your own life and just because you are married, it doesn’t mean you have to go out of your way to serve her.
Dumb ad.
Have you commented in the wrong place? 🙂