|
Future Legend/Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered
Diamond Dogs | Sweet Thing
| Candidate
Sweet Thing (Reprise)
When You Rock And Roll With Me
We Are The Dead | 1984 |
Big Brother
Diamond Dogs
RCA APL 10576
April 24, 1974
One week following
the release of Aladdin Sane in April 1973, Bowie boarded the Trans-Siberian
Express, in Japan, with the intention of seeing Russia. Upon his
return it was observed that he had been deeply affected by the experience.
`If I cut an album about this ride, it would be my last'. Angie,
before their departure, made her mark upon the `Land of The Rising
Sun' by being indefinitely exiled from the country following skirmishes
she had with Japanese police who were holding back crowds of well-wishers.
Back in England, Bowie was preparing himself to tour, and on May
12th he appeared at the Earls Court exhibition centre. The concert
was a complete disaster principally due to poor sound quality and
too large an auditorium. Needless to say a second concert planned
for the venue was quickly cancelled. On July 3rd, the British tour
reached it's last night at London's Hammersmith Odeon. It was during
this concert that that Bowie stated; `Not only is this the last
show of the tour, but it's the last show we'll ever do' Hordes of
fans lamented their disbelief, and the entire last song, suitably
'Rock and Roll Suicide' was wrought with emotional scenes. Bowie
later felt that he had been misinterpreted. 'We', paradoxically
himself and the band, was also juxtaposed with the two distinctive
character mill-wheels hanging around his neck, Ziggy and Aladdin.
When he said that 'it was the last show we'll ever do', he meant
that it was the last his alter-ego would perform. If he were to
progress fully as an artist, then the shackles of being singularly
identified as purely one ambiguous persona needed removal. There
was another question to be confronted if he were to expand, the
problem of what to do with the Spiders. Prior to the 'retirement',
Bowie and the boys had become more divided. (One of the many rubbing-sticks
was that MainMan had Bowie touring in far more grandiose style than
the Spiders, in their van). Consequently, the heat was rising when
Bowie departed for France and the Chateau d'Herouville, a residential,
16-track studio located in the Parisian suburbs, to record Pin-Ups.
'The Pin-Ups album was a pleasure. And I knew the band (The Spiders)
was over. It was a last farewell to them in a way. This chateau
once belonged to Chopin, and was occupied for a while by the famous
woman writer George Sand. (Pin-Ups)...kept us from breaking up until
Mick and I got into a fight over our future musical direction. He,
(Ronson) wanted more traditional R&R, but I wanted something else.'
Between October 18-20 1973, Bowie recorded the '1980 Floor Show'
at the Marquee Club for American Televisions 'Midnight Special'
This was filmed before an invited audience, and previewed the song
'1984'. It was the last time Ronson and Bowie performed live together.
Ronson's thoughts: "I turned up put me make-up on, got me guitar
out, played, put me guitar away, took me makeup off and went home.'
Bowie attempted to obtain the rights for George Orwell's 'Nineteen
Eighty Four' from the author's estate. However, Orwell's wife procrastinated;
'My God ! Put it to music '?" With such a negative reply, Bowie
parlayed the project into `Diamond Dogs', released in April 1974.
Curiously, if the spine of the album is inspected, the artist is
simply referred to as 'Bowie'-a unique gesture, never undertaken
previously or since. Bowie used a very spartan backing, drums, base
and keyboards with some additional guitar. The majority of the other
instrumentation was of his own design, as were the writing, arrangements,
mixing and production.
[Top]
FUTURE
LEGEND/BEWITCHED BOTHERED AND BEWILDERED
Future Legend is plausibly Bowies most intense presentation of imagery.
The spoken narrative which opens the time and place of the album,
is akin to a remotely controlled camera, divorced from the action,
yet somehow capable to visually capturing the entire set. As observers,
we feel privileged at being given the opportunity to witness such
insight. Adapting Rogers' eerie overture, Bowie narrates a poem
as disturbing as it is informative. The analogies between Diamond
Dogs and the futuristic novel, `Nineteen Eighty-Four' are perhaps
at their greatest on the album's second side, but the two works
should not be held in comparison as a single entity. Bowie has in
no manner attempted to adapt Orwell's masterpiece, moreover he has
sought to convey a personal vision of some lurid future time through
his own conception. The fact that certain parallels are drawn is
as coincidental as any form of postulation or projection towards
a 'Brave New World.' Indeed, a glance at Bowie's previous work should
be suffice in suggesting that as a man of changes, of projection,
he was more than competent in the art of salient thought. The form
of projection was, to a degree, pre-destined to be both desperate
and destructive. The Man Who Sold The World, and Hunky Dory reflect
the ominous Super-race of totalitarian doctrines; and the ongoing
sense of decadence which pervades Aladdin Sane justifies the prospect
of a bleak, horrific, no-hope future. Thus, we arrive in Hunger
City, voracious in its appetite to starve - ultimate decadence.
We are unaware of how long the state has existed, what is certain
however, is that it is devastatingly real. The stench of rotting
flesh intoxicates the urban landscape, we become immediately aware
of a total collapse of both dignity and discipline. Some seething
malignancy has levelled a once, in it's own way, prosperous society.
It now festers and sweats corruption. Somewhere, above eye-level,
and in a complex dedicated to the virtues of self-restraint and
moderation,(ironically sighted on a hill whose name bares the complete
antithesis) there gaze down "red mutant eyes". Momentarily, we question
whether we are even on earth. What form or manner of apocalypse
has occurred to cause such drastic genetic variation. The answer
is forthcoming "no more big wheels" The largest cogs in a totalitarian
machine of supremely have ground to a halt, bringing the cessation
of society itself. Carnivorous beasts still plague each other with
praying proclivity. "Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size
of cats" It is at this point we discover the identity and whereabouts
of the city's population. They are not men, but "peoploids" possessing
only a slight human semblance, effectively sub-human. They live
"in small tribes coveting the highest of the sterile landscapes."
They are The Dogs, deformed and gross with a savage ability to assault
the belongings and members of a second degenerate breed - The Decadents
of "Love Me Avenue". To these regressed creatures, the Dogs are
a harmful threat. However, there violence appears hardly gratuitous
when they reconstitute the useless pleasures of the decadent in
a far more practical form; "Ripping and re-wrapping mink and shiny
silver fox-now leg warmers". Their marks of recognition and rank
are associated to precious stones, the most notable being, The Diamond
Dogs. Before the following track Bowie shouts "This `aint Rock AND
ROLL. THIS IS GENOCIDE" A devastating realisation on the part of
the writer that it is his own medium and the decadence he promotes
and to a limit, condones, which is pushing society to the brink
of no return
[Top] .
DIAMOND
DOGS
Meanwhile, back in the decadent camp, we join the creatures of Chic
who have gone completely `over the top'. What was once vogue is
now crass. Being a latent homosexual, wearing make-up, acting effete,
reptilian, and sexually bizarre, becomes about as daringly risqué
as uncovering the legs of some Victorian piano. These beings do
not simply aspire to the transsexual, they actually are hermaphrodites.
Plastic surgery for face-lifts has entered the realms of science
fiction. "As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent you asked for
the latest party, with your silicon hump and your ten-inch stump.."
There is hostility between the Dogs and the Decadents, as the latter
try to allude detection by crawling on all fours through the suburbs,
but "the Diamond Dogs are poachers and they hide behind trees."
hunting their prey down with a lust for blood -"Mannequins with
kill appeal". Apparently, nowhere out of doors is safe, the temptation
to draw comparisons with William Burrough's 'Wild Boys' is irresistible.
Enter 'Halloween Jack' who is "a real cool cat" (as opposed to a
red-eyed dog). He inhabits this urban sterility, which we now learn
to be Manhattan Chase. He's a wily, instinctive creature, seemingly
at home in the literal concrete jungle. With all forms of electrical
energy gone, he incorporates a 'Johnny Weismuller' guise, sliding
down a ropes onto the street below, "Oh Tarzan go-man-go." His objective
is to meet another, female decadent whose "face Is science-feature"
and she sports "A dolly-brooch". The dolly-brooch can possibly be
viewed in a similar capacity to the coral paperweight cherished
by Winston Smith, the hero of Orwell's novel. It is a singular connection
with the domestic pleasure of a by-gone time. It is "sweetly reminiscent
of Something mother used to bake." But the surge of memory is quickly
abated by them being wrecked-up and paralysed by the Dogs watchful
eyes, a parallel to Orwell's 'Thought police'.
[top]
SWEET
THING/CANDIDATE/ SWEET THING (REPRISE)
The protagonist in `Sweet Thing' tries to rationalise a human relationship
in this swiftly decomposing society. He longs for some form of sincere
relationship, involving human emotions and sexual feelings. The
only way for him to fulfil such a desire is to make love in some
secluded doorway, beyond the Decadent Chic's confines, and hidden
from the `Dogs'. The doorway represents a transitory state to which
neither side can claim ownership. In consequence it is safe..to
love in a doorways Sadly, all the couple achieve is "to wrangle
some screams from the door." The sexual act is a gratuity of little
worth, indeed it causes suffering. The protagonist finds it difficult
to comprehend that it is himself "putting pain in a stranger." The
same emotionless attitude towards the sexual act had presented itself
to Winston in 'Nineteen Eighty Four'. He had felt that his relationship
with Katherine, his wife, was similarly icy: "To embrace her was
like embracing a jointed wooden image...she would lie there with
shut eyes, neither resisting nor co-operating, but submitting. `In
'Nineteen Eighty Four' a real love affair was an almost unthinkable
event. When Winston had taken the favours of a prostitute it had
been a repulsive act.on... 'The paint was plastered so thick on
her face that it looked as though it might crack like a cardboard
mask....but the truly dreadful detail was that her mouth had fallen
a little open, revealing nothing but cavernous blackness. She had
no teeth at all.' And so the copulation in Sweet Thing resembles
"A portrait in flesh, trails on a leash." The protagonists partner
is also submissive, no emotion, he is alone with his faith for something
bigger. The experience frightens him into a threat of total isolation.
He pleads, "Will you see that I'm scared and I'm lonely." Anarchism
looms in his head, bored and destructive he runs "to the centre
of things" to find some form of consolation from the "knowing ones".
The response to his solipsism is the off-handed, depressive comment
that "Hope is a cheap thing". Their gesture to his anguish is one
of tearing to shreds any form of romanticism by using a cynical
rebuff. "I'm glad that your older than me, makes me feel important
and free. Does that make you smile, isn't it me." The Candidate,
a representation in Winston's total faith in O'Brien as being THE
person of mutual faith and understanding, stretched forward his
insidious, consolatory hand. " I'll make you a deal" he says, and
presents the protagonist with a different view of pure latency.
"We'll pretend we're walking home 'cause your futures at stake.".
The world he paints is an illusion, full of fraudulence. "My set
is amazing it even smells like a street." He is endeavouring to
tempt the protagonist into accepting the value of decadence in the
streets, when the Dogs have finally been exterminated. Entertainment
would be had "with the poisonous people, spreading rumours and lies
and stories they made up." They would make you confess, scream,
even wish that you had never been born. Identity is also removed
by visiting a shop on the corner where masks made from papier-mâché
create "Bullet-proof faces of Charlie Manson, Cassius Clay." But
the protagonist needs reality, not a simulacrum. He screams: "I
want you, I need you, anyone out there ? Anytime ?" The reply comes
swiftly as a "tres butch little number" steps forward offering crude
sexual propositions, hallmarking the philosophy of the Decadents:
"Hey gorgeous, I want you. When it's good it's really good and when
it's bad I go to pieces." The Candidate continues his sophistry
by dwelling on the misconceived impressions of sex. It's general
lack of penetration or pleasure. "On the street where you live I
could not hold up my head." The feeling sex provides is one of gross
embarrassment. "For I put all I had in another bed. On another floor,
in the back of a car, in a cellar.." Sex, love and emotion are viewed
as spiritual and physical rape, leaving nothing representing satisfaction,
but a frenzied orgasmic fear. n 'Till the sun drips blood on the
seedy young knights, who press you on the ground while shaking in
fright." And as Winston Smith in 'Nineteen Eighty Four' had no heroic
qualities, just a wistful longing for truth and decency, so the
hero of Sweet Thing is bound to decadence and his own authoritarian
society. The Candidate/O'Brien, presses him to the acceptance of
the "cheap" hope offered. And as Winston made his final submission
on his own accord, so the protagonist follows suit. Not only does
he reverse an original belief concerning the possibility of change,
he unequivocally denies he ever thought otherwise. Winston concurred;
`It was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished.
He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.' So the
protagonist:- "Then let it be, it's all I ever wanted. It's a street
with a deal and a taste, it's got balls, it's got me, it's got you
[top]
WHEN
YOU ROCK N' ROLL WITH ME
'When You Rock n' Roll With Me' is a curious lightweight interlude
on an otherwise extremely academic album. In a way it is Bowie's
way of assuring his audience that he is not obsessively pessimistic,
as would probably be inferred from the majority of his recent lyrics.
`It's just a song to say for the 100th time I'm not that serious'.
While touring with the Diamond Dogs Stageshow in 1974, he paused
during a rendition of the song to announce: 'This is about me and
singing, and why people go on stage...you start thinking one thing
and end up thinking another but the music says it all' By saying
that the song was about himself, he was indicating that he recognised
the reason for his acclaim, the genre he had adopted, and the way
in which stardom has it's own release from forming stereotypes when
manipulated in the right manner. It would be a misconception to
view the song as an 'ego-trip', as it is a commentary of how 'ego-trips'
are formed, and how they can be dissolved. The singer croons; "You
always were the ones that knew" to his audience. As a star he had
been "sold for the likes of you." But as the stereo-typical punters
tried to hold him down to one particular role, he had to escape
the heat. This is accomplished by the cunning adoption of a new,
more interesting roles "I would take a foxy kind of stand, while
tens of thousands found me in demand." And as each new wave comes
forward, trying to cage the idealist, the romantic; Ziggy; Aladdin
and Halloween Jack; his "cue" to break free becomes enforced. He
may well be "out of breath", but he has no regrets nor doubts because
he can always find "the door which lets me out". The song should
not be confused with the remainder of the album. There is no connection
to be made here between Orwell's Winston and his raven-haired lover
Julia. It is a love song from a performer to his audience. A token
of thanks seldom displayed in song by musicians. Very altruistic
and very rewarding to hear.
[top]
WE
ARE THE DEAD/1984/ BIG BROTHER
Unless the reader wishes to enjoy solely the musical quality of
these three tracks, it would be unwise to attempt to follow the
lyrics without first referring to Orwell's novel. A general theme
and feeling can be obtained from listening to the words, but they
are best understood by comparison with the initial concept of the
book. 'We are the Dead' is a line spoken by Winston Smith to his
girlfriend, Julia, in a garret above an antique shop, prior to their
detention by the Thought Police in the book, 'Nineteen Eighty Four',
The dialogue runs: 'We are the dead' he said. 'We are the dead'
echoed Julia dutifully. 'You are the dead' said an iron voice behind
them. As a brief and general synopsis, Winston, along with all fellow
Party members of the autocratic city, Airship One, (London), in
Oceania, (W.Europe), is constantly under the surveillance of telescreens
- the tools of the State for both information and invigilation.
The regime is so oppressive that free-thought and free-will are
beyond opinion. An unseen, and therefore highly feared faction,
ostentatiously known as `The Party', have made obsolete much of
the old language, and consequently the thought-processes in which
we would indulge today. Naturally, in removing the very language
structure and the countless words therein; existence; identity;
difference; abstract relations etc.., and by substituting them with
blanket-words, the very essence of philosophising becomes obsolete
and impossible. A few people thought instinctively that there were
alternatives, yet they hadn't the diction and therefore, ability,
to prove otherwise. One such confused being was Winston Smith. He
discovered in Julia, his lover, another person, who may not have
thought akin to himself, but who also had a disregard for the Party.
Eventually, their liaison was uncovered and both underwent a process
of rehabilitation. In 'we Are The Dead', the character of Winston
reflects upon his relationship with Julia. "Something kind of hit
me today I looked at you and wondered if you saw things my way."
He is also aware of the possibility of repercussions if their affair
were ever to be disclosed, feeling that they're "taking it hard
all the time." Effectively, "Fighting with the eyes of the blind."
They have no certain identity, feeling that they are numbers on
paper. The sinister presence of The Party is always prevalent, saying:
"We want you, be elusive but don't walk far." In 'Nineteen Eighty
Four' children are indoctrinated by The Party to expose and accuse
their own parents as traitors to The Party, this too is brought
to mind. "For we're breaking in the new boys, `deceive your next
of kin"' Anyone outside of the Party's domain are viewed as allies
to the Diamond Dogs: "Defecating excrement." Winston's mind wanderings
return to his Julia, lying beautiful and innocent on their sanctorious
bed. He feels that they are both already dead following their actions,
"Because of all we've seen...all we've said." But if their disobedience
is to become their eventual end, perhaps some future expectation
will benefit from their ancestarian humanity. "Living on the breath
of a hope to be shared, trusting on the sons of our love. " Sadly,
they are the deformed, confused results of totalitarianism. There
are no odd-moments of inspiration, The Party has seen to that. "Heaven's
on the pillow, it's silence competes with Hell" and it's a "twenty-four
hour service. guaranteed to make you tell." '1984' is a song of
foretelling advice. Bowie removes himself from the narrative in
favour of putting over a statement of caution. The title should
not be taken literally, even as Orwell's hero, Winston revealed,
'He did not know with any certainty that this was 1984.' We can,
however, assure ourselves that it is sometime in the future, distant
or near. In consequence, Bowie opens the song with a generalism
that can be attributed to any deed. "Somedays they won't let you,
now you must decree." There follows a play on words, reminding the
listener of Bob Dylan's prophetic, reactionary songs of the sixties.
"The times they are a-telling and the changing isn't free. History
is pointing in one direction, it's result can be found from divination
of tea-leaves, through to documented television evidence. Whatever
the premonition, the menace is clear, "Beware the savage Saw of
1984." The second verse deals with punishment incurred from accepting
the future peril without care. The acts of abasement will be both
physical and spiritual. They,(The Party), will split your bleeding
cranium and fill it full of air..and tell you that you're eighty...you'll
be shooting up on anything." Total submission and an utter belief
that two and two make five. Bowie ends the song utilising lyrics
which would have been equally at home on 'The Man Who Sold the World'
His anger at people's complacency and acceptance cannot be withheld.
It smacks of a return to the idealism of his formative songs. The
motivation and anger felt by Bowie and his contemporaries of that
time need manifest itself once more in a stronger, more furtive
manner, if there is to be salvation from the 'Savage Jaw'. "I'm
looking for a vehicle" (motivation), "I'm looking for a ride." (Total
participation to the end, if a final goal is to be achieved.) I'm
looking for a party" (Basically, a wish for Bowie's own solution
of an extreme fascistic state in order for an eventual liberalisation
to realise itself) "I'm looking for the treason I knew in `65" (The
`treason' being a state where idealism can be attained, relating
to the reference to `changing times' in Dylan's reactionary years.)
'Big Brother', is the final act of submission, previously entertained
with Winston Smiths ultimate resignation to The Party, personified
by the fictitious Big Brother, Bowie urges thoughts of death and
decadence and other fantastic feelings, to give way in a warranted
act of servitude: "Don't talk of dust and roses, or should we powder
our noses" The Party is the only form of conciliation which remains
that can entreat the path to the inflexibility of perfection. Hence:
"Give me steel, rive me steel, rive me pulses unreal." The imagery
is one of a glass asylum, where the inmates are so utterly subjugated
by Big Brother's despotic oppression, that the most brittle of substances
can easily keep any hint of mayhem at bay. The suction of all towards
the final `liberticide' is envisaged as "A better whirlpool" , where
the Candidate's notion of sex providing neither insight nor pleasure
would be realised. "We'll be living from sin and we can really begin."
The plea cries out to Big Brother using Christian paraphrases for
redemption -"Please saviour save your shores, hear me I'm graphically
yours" The citation is as stated, Big Brother is 'graphically' omnipotent
and omnipresent. Those, (decadent), fallen by the wayside he will
claim. Those confused and doubting will have "someone to follow."
The nihilistic anarchists will be humiliated and excited by the
guilt of their own consciousness when rendered to his Draconian
inquisition. He will be the "Brave Apollo", the champion of all,
providing illusory happiness, "Someone to fool us, someone like
you.", they rant together. At this juncture, before the final refrain,
Bowie intercedes into the song with a final reflective thought.
As a portion of the '1984' theme it is unauthorised and may mirror
a flash of inspiration before the onsets of oppression. It ends
a trilogy of awareness, first encountered in 'We Are The Dead' as
"the theatre of financiers, count them, fifteen round a table, white
and dressed to kill", through '1984's' idealistic "I'm looking for
the treason I knew in '65", to 'Big Brothers' "Lord, I'd take an
overdose if you knew what's going down." With these words Bowie
inconclusively affirms his faith in the human race, yet would contemplate
suicide if he had any inclination that some positive super-being
was aware of the sacred-cow being worshipped below. "Shake it up.
Move it up, Brother..." ad infinitum.
[top]
'So the best
thing that can happen is for an extreme right Government to come.
It'll do something positive, at least to cause commotion in people
and they'll either accept the dictatorship or get rid of it....people
aren't very bright you know. They say they want freedom, but when
they get the chance they pass up Nietzsche and choose Hitler.'
|
