| David Bowie – Suffragette City Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Possibly about drugs, possibly about bisexuality. Mostly about sex. :) Also - Bowie never did heroin. Cocaine was his downfall, it was Iggy that did the heroin. |
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| David Bowie – The Bewlay Brothers Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The whole song is a Schizophrenic episode. The repetition of similar sounding words is very typical of one of the symptoms of schizophrenia: And the goodmen tomorrow Had their feet in the wallow And their heads of brawn were nicer shorn And how they bought their positions with saccharin and trust And the world was asleep to our latent fuss Sighing, the swirl through the streets Like the crust of the sun... It's spot on - and of course it would be. Bowie had first-hand experience of this terrible illness through his brother Terry. It goes deeper than that though. Schizophrenics often hear echoes, voices saying things that aren't real. Listen to the song and there's a very disconcerting low echo of the main vocal. It's almost a buzzing noise in the background at times. Very clever. This is David at his most personal, trying to piece together what's happening to his brother. And finally - Bewlay Brothers? The significance of the name eluded me for years. It all makes sense when you consider that the physicist who first coined the term 'Schizophrenia' was Eugen Bleuler. Bewlay is easily a play on his name. |
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| David Bowie – (Don't Sit Down) Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| I think he cracks up because of what the guitarist is playing. | |
| David Bowie – Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?) Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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The meaning of this song is very clear to me. After the first world war, and to a certain extent after the second, thousands of surviving soldiers were sent home unable to cope with their experiences. They were shell-shocked, and quite literally driven insane by the horrors that they had witnessed. The lucky ones returned to families or communities who looked after them, but often the unlucky ended up in institutions, or worse - roaming the streets begging for food - pitiful shells of who they were. There were so many of these ex-soldiers that most communities knew at least one man who 'was never the same after the war.' As a young man, growing up in Britain in the 50's, Bowie would certainly have encountered these poor shell-shocked ex-soldiers, who had changed beyond all recognition. Who will love Aladdin Sane? |
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