I can't sleep. Stupid alcohol messing with my sleep. I want coffee. In fact I'll go make some. Soon. Before I've written more then a few lines more. I love music. I can't play or sing but I love listening to it. I love good lyrics. I want to write some things about music. Why? I dunno, probably because it amuses me. And sometimes someone say; "Hey, if you like that you'd probably love this!" and I find something really, really cool. Or I'm just an egomaniac who loves the fact that you guys comment on stuff I write and gives me attention? Who the fuck knows? Anyway, I've got my coffee so here it goes. My first little text about a musician I love; David Bowie.
I was 15. Or something. I was a geek, I am still but back that I wasn't the lovable rather reasonably-looking and cheerful geek that you've all grown to like and cherish. I was an ugly mofo. I was overweight. I had great grades, but other then that I was not successful with anything really. I wasn't even a fair starcraft player yet. I don't think I was really happy, but that would change a few months later. It was a summer evening. It was raining. I sat in front of the TV in my parents house and they showed a documentary called "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars". From that day forward my online handles were always something like "dusty" or "stardust". Quite possibly the single gayest fact about me known to man.
I don't care that he was dressed in a, ehh, dress? On that day in London 1973 the guy was a god. Or an alien. "Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe!" After watching that crap I had long hair for the next 4 or 5 years. This is 3 years later;
Time flies, right? Which reminds me, Bowie sang about that too!
Time - He flexes like a whore
Falls wanking to the floor
His trick is you and me, boy
Anyway, I started listening a lot to him and he's actually more then a really fucking gay look, a messiah complex and a fairly cool voice. They guy is an artist in every sense of the word and has both some of the coolest lyrics ever written and some really cool rock songs. His first big Album was "Space Oddity" from 1969. The Album has two really cool songs, the titular "Space Oddity" and the amazingly awesomely named "Unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed". The first one has a really cheesy video. Notice how young Bowie looked a bit like a young Stu Ungar and then ignore the video and hit the song up on spotify instead. The video version sucks ass.
The other songs on the Album are of less stellar quality. I like some of them but I wouldn't recommend them to anyone but a Bowie fan. A year later, 1970, he released "The Man who Sold the World". This album, like the first one, has two really good songs ("The Man who Sold the World" and The Width of a Circle" and a bunch I don't care much for. Nirvana made a great live cover of the first one, but other then that no one I know really gives two shits about this album. Yet another year later he put out "Honky Dory" with a bunch of cool songs including classics "Changes", "Life on Mars?" and one of my personal favourites; "Oh! You Pretty Things". It's a really nice feel-good song.
Wake up you sleepy head Put on some clothes,
shake up your bed
Put another log on the fire for me
I've made some breakfast and coffee
Look out my window and what do I see
A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me
The guy looks seriously retarded though, I can see why he started using make up.
Then he finally got around to make The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, quite possibly on of the greatest concept albums of all time. To quote wikipedia; "The character of Ziggy was initially inspired by British rock 'n' roll singer Vince Taylor who Bowie met after he had had a breakdown and believed he was a cross between a god and an alien". Yea, he's that weird.
The time is five years to go before the end of the earth. It has been announced that the world will end because of lack of natural resources. Ziggy is in a position where all the kids have access to things that they thought they wanted. The older people have lost all touch with reality and the kids are left on their own to plunder anything. Ziggy was in a rock-and-roll band and the kids no longer want rock-and-roll. There's no electricity to play it. Ziggy's adviser tells him to collect news and sing it, 'cause there is no news. So Ziggy does this and there is terrible news. 'All the young dudes' is a song about this news. It's no hymn to the youth as people thought. It is completely the opposite. [...]
The end comes when the infinites arrive. They really are a black hole, but I've made them people because it would be very hard to explain a black hole on stage. [...]
Ziggy is advised in a dream by the infinites to write the coming of a Starman, so he writes 'Starman', which is the first news of hope that the people have heard. So they latch onto it immediately...The starmen that he is talking about are called the infinites, and they are black-hole jumpers. Ziggy has been talking about this amazing spaceman who will be coming down to save the earth. They arrive somewhere in Greenwich Village. They don't have a care in the world and are of no possible use to us. They just happened to stumble into our universe by black hole jumping. Their whole life is travelling from universe to universe. In the stage show, one of them resembles Brando, another one is a Black New Yorker. I even have one called Queenie, the Infinite Fox...Now Ziggy starts to believe in all this himself and thinks himself a prophet of the future starmen. He takes himself up to the incredible spiritual heights and is kept alive by his disciples. When the infinites arrive, they take bits of Ziggy to make them real because in their original state they are anti-matter and cannot exist in our world. And they tear him to pieces on stage during the song 'Rock 'n' roll suicide'. As soon as Ziggy dies on stage the infinites take his elements and make themselves visible.
And then they try to tell you that drugs never did any good... If you truly believe that I recommend you to burn all your CD's and remove spotify from your computer. Half the guys you're listening to were high as kites when they made that music, hell, the Beatles were so stoned that they even let Ringo sing a few songs! (bonus points if you figure out who I stole that joke from)
Anyway, at this point I'd strongly recommend you to put this trackon on spotify. That's the introduction to his last live show as Ziggy Stardust before he retired that persona. If you can find that concert DVD it's great, or you can just open the album up on spotify. It's really, really good. Everything from his own super hit "Ziggy Stardust" to his cover of the Rolling Stones "Let's spend the night together" and Jacques Brel's "My Death" is cool as fuck. The single greatest thing might be how coherent that concert was. It starts out with Beethoven's ninth symphony from A Clockwork Orange, then the band starts playing the rock song "Hang On To Yourself" which sets the tone for the first part which is mostly up beat songs before the turning point in the middle with "Space Oddity" and "My Death" which builds up towards a much darker part of the performance. The second part is about death, getting old, philosophy and sex rather then romantic emotions. It ends with the superb "Rock and Roll Suicide".
While writing this I get the general feeling that Bowie speaks much more to the younger version of Dusty. The version I'd probably despise a fair bit and tell to get his damn act together if he wants to get something done or get laid. I'd probably tell his sorry ass that he can't expect to just find some game and make ridiculous amounts of money and then by some twist of fate start with martial arts to get in shape. Or at least I hope I would. Anyway. I don't care if I'm more grown up and happy as a fish in water, this last song feels comforting.
Oh no love! you're not alone
No matter what or who you've been
No matter when or where you've seen
After the Ziggy Stardust era he made a few more good albums and a bunch of songs I really like. "Rebel Rebel" and "Absolute beginners" (one of the best love songs of all time, or at least top ~50 imo) comes to mind.
I've nothing much to offer
There's nothing much to take
I'm an absolute beginner
And I'm absolutely sane
As long as we're together
The rest can go to hell
I absolutely love you
But we're absolute beginners
With eyes completely open
But nervous all the same
Unfortunately most of his later stuff is really weird and it doesn't really speak to me. At all. Don't get me wrong, he does a bunch of cool stuff, but I just don't get it. He has great ideas but everything just turns into some kind of experimental glue of mediocrity much like The Rolling Stones' "Their Satanic Majesties Request". Unfortunately he did not follow it up with a Beggars Banquet (on of the greatest albums of all time) but rather more of the same crap.
Other random songs I think you should check out is the wonderfully ironic "God Knows I'm Good" about an old lady who is shoplifting, the really gay song "Lady Stardust" (with really cool lyrics), the über cool "Moonage Daydream" and the fairly cute "Let me Sleep Beside You".
If you don't know a lot about Bowie but want to check him out I made a little playlist with some of my favourite songs of him. Both a lot of his hits but also some slightly less known songs;
On January 15 2011 19:15 GoTuNk wrote:
I don't think anyone is gonna read this but just wanted to say scandinavian girls are hot
wow I opened the comments expecting this exact post
Browsing through your hand histories makes me wonder that you might not be aware these games are possibly play money. Have you ever tried to cash out? - Kapol
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and a bunch I don't care much for. Nirvana made a great live cover of the first one, but other then that no one I know really gives two shits about this album. Yet another year later he put out "Honky Dory" with a bunch of cool songs including classics "Changes", "Life on Mars?" and one of my personal favourites; "Oh! You Pretty Things". It's a really nice feel-good song. 
