I’ve been listening for David Bowie again lately and three songs that I really like, I cannot for the life of me figure out:
Life on Mars
Time will crawl
Man who sold the world
What the hell are these songs about? The lyrics are vaguely meaningfull but I can’t make a damn bit of sense out of any of them with respect to some actual tangeable event/subject.
Frozen snickers bars to anyone who helps me sort this out.
thanks.
Well he did lots of drugs in the old days, and got into avante guard art in a big way (supposedly he used to write out phraises that sounded good, cut them out and then rearange them randomly to make lyrics).
Well okay. That would explain the:
“Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow”
lyric and many more like it.
Thanks.
Oh.
I thought this thread was going to be about the poster and moderator of the Great Debates forum known as David B. Never mind.
David Bowie had a habit of writing words on a piece of paper and drawing them randomly out of a hat. He’d arrange the words to form his lyrics.
Perhaps that’s why they don’t make much sense.
Does anyone know which Bowie songs were made using the random picked lyrics method? I have seen tv shows showing Bowie do it, but never seen a list of which songs were made this way.
P.S. if you get the cahce see Bowies latest concert tour, he was fantastic at San Jose.
If you want to enjoy listening to David Bowie, you must first understand and accept that many of his lyrics do not make the slightest bit of sense. I don’t know if he really intentionally randomizes them, but I’m sure he’s often not trying to tell a coherent story either. It’s just supposed to sound cool.
When I was a sophomore in college, I learned all of the words to “The Bewlay Brothers” (the last song on Hunky Dory). Man, it was an effort as the lyrics made no sense whatsoever. If there was ever a song written by drawing phrases out of a hat, that’s it.
“I was stone and he was wax so he could scream and still relax
and it frightened the small children away.”
or my personal fave
“So the factor max that proved the fact was melted down
woven on the edging of my pillow
And my brother lays upon the rocks he could be dead he could be not
he could be you
He’s Chameleon, Comedian, Corinithian, and Caricature”
Wha?
I always assumed this was a reference to gay sex 
Bowie’s brother was schizophrenic so it may have been about him…?
Didnt cutting up the words and picking them out of a hat come from William Burroughs?
Ah, Bowie in the 70s. He thinks to himself, midway through the decade, i’m doing far too much cocaine here, I need to get away for a while.
So what does old Davie do?
Goes to Berlin, at the time apparently the most debauched city around. With Iggy Pop.
And Lou Reed.
Good call!
I thought this would be about David Blaine actually.
Me to; I expected an attack on his website ReatlityNewsOnline. “Yo, David B., why don’t you give more props to my main Survivor Johnny Fairplay?” – that kind of thing.
Me to; I expected an attack on his website ReatlityNewsOnline. “Yo, David B., why don’t you give more props to my main Surivor Johnny Fairplay?” – that kind of thing.