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The Informer
The Informer. Starting as a reworking/development of the instrumental “Plan,” “The Informer” wound up with a dozen vocal tracks (all Bowie) and a lyric possibly inspired by Martin McDonagh’s black...
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Album Poll, Day 1: One-Votes to 30-20
If the song poll was a cavalry battle, the “readers’ favorite Bowie albums” poll was trench warfare. The song poll’s results came after many sweeps and shifts, with a wide range of songs jockeying for...
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Album Poll, Day 2: 19-11
We reach the middleweight section of the album poll: those that wound up ranked between 19 and 11, by you (don’t blame me). We begin with what was once, for a time, Bowie’s “last” album: 19. Reality...
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Reissues: Changes
So there’s been interest in reprinting some old entries that weren’t read much way back when. Why not start with the credo song? (see Momus’ original comment.) This entry was substantially revised in...
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Reissues: Conversation Piece
One of the few Sixties Bowie songs to make the reader top 100 song poll, “Conversation Piece” was one of DB’s “lost gems,” a B-side never compiled until the Ryko Space Oddity reissue in 1990. But is...
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Reissues: All the Madmen
The unearthing of a never-before-published interview [which I believe is legit, not a clever fiction] with Bowie from February 1971 inspired this reposting. In it, when asked about “All the Madmen,”...
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Reissues: Memory of a Free Festival
On a day in which I appear to be snowed in, why not revive a memory of summer? This is a hybrid reissue—the main entry is that of the book (which Repeater excerpted back when the book was released),...
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Reissues: Amsterdam
Along with the VU’s “Waiting For the Man,” Jacques Brel’s “Amsterdam” (and Scott Walker’s interpretation of it) is one of the essential building blocks of Bowie’s development as a songwriter. Diamond...
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Reissues: Panic In Detroit
Here’s one that didn’t get many comments back when, and whose lyrical scenario seems more true to life today than it did in 1973, sadly. One of those songs whose simplicity, drive, power and wit kept...
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Reissues: The Laughing Gnome
Fitting for April Fool’s Day, it’s the one of the most knocked-about and belittled songs in the Bowie canon. But I stand by what I wrote in 2009, and the book version has even more love for the song....
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Reissues: Golden Years
As you likely know, Dennis Davis died last week, furthering this year’s ambition to be the worst year ever. In his honor, I’ve revived one of his first performances for Bowie, the “Golden Years”...
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Reissues: Sweet Thing—Candidate—Sweet Thing (Reprise)
One of the more radically transformed entries in the book, with good reason. This was the “cut up” entry of the blog, and it didn’t quite work (well, maybe you thought it did). I’d planned to do one...
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Reissues: Cygnet Committee
In December 2009, I had been writing the blog for nearly half a year, at a steady pace. Readership was modest and comments were few—I imagine the majority of readers at the time were people who liked...
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Reissues: Word On a Wing
A good place as any to close the “reissues” series, which I hope you’ve enjoyed or tolerated. This is one of the essential Bowie songs of the Seventies, and as such it’s weird, beautiful and a touch...
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Heat
Heat. 1. Mirror Contract The photograph shows a room in a flat in West Berlin—155 Hauptstraße, Schöneberg. David Bowie lies on his side on his bed. Thirty years old, his face is that of a beautiful...
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Bowie: Object/ David Bowie Is…
I’ve still not read an autobiography by a rock person that had the same degree of presumptuousness and arrogance that a rock & roll record used to have. So I’ve decided to write my autobiography...
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Sue (Or In a Season of Crime)
Sue (Or In a Season of Crime) (single). Sue (Or In a Season of Crime) (single edit, video). Sue (Or In a Season of Crime) (Blackstar remake). 1. Allegro con brio Imagine: David Bowie wondering whether...
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‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore
‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore (Bowie home demo, single). ‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore (Blackstar remake). A man of property and standing, believing his new wife virtuous, is deceived. She grows sick,...
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Lazarus
Lazarus (Michael C. Hall, Lazarus stage performance, 2015). Lazarus (Hall, The Late Show, 2015). Lazarus (Bowie). Lazarus (Bowie, video edit). Lazarus (Hall, Lazarus soundtrack). Lazarus (Hall, live,...
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When I Met You
When I Met You (Michael C. Hall and Krystina Alabado, Lazarus perf., 2015). When I Met You (Hall and Alabado, Lazarus cast recording). When I Met You (Bowie). At the end of Lazarus, Thomas Jerome...
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