Quicksand

David Bowie

I'm closer to the Golden Dawn
Immersed in Crowley's uniform
Of imagery
I'm living in a silent film
Portraying Himmler's sacred realm
Of dream reality
I'm frightened by the total goal
Drawing to the ragged hole
And I ain't got the power anymore
No, I ain't got the power anymore

I'm the twisted name on Garbo's eyes
Living proof of Churchill's lies, I'm destiny
I'm torn between the light and dark
Where others see their targets, divine symmetry
Should I kiss the viper's fang?
Or herald loud the death of Man
I'm sinking in the quicksand of my thought
And I ain't got the power anymore

Don't believe in yourself, don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with death's release
Aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah

I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man
Just a mortal with the potential of a superman
I'm living on
I'm tethered to the logic of Homo Sapien
Can't take my eyes from the great salvation
Of bullshit faith
If I don't explain what you ought to know
You can tell me all about it on the next Bardo
I'm sinking in the quicksand of my thought
And I ain't got the power anymore

Don't believe in yourself, don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with death's release
Aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah

Don't believe in yourself, don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with death's release
Aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah


Lyrics submitted by ruben, edited by stefanhinz

Quicksand Lyrics as written by David Bowie

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

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Quicksand song meanings
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    General Comment

    "Hunky Dory" is his Nietzschean album. The concept of Overman or Superman ("Ãœbermensch") aims at overcoming the obsolete concept of "Man" which only holds us back from becoming Overmen, some kind of a more noble, free, more creative Man that has outgrown the puniness and limitations of mankind. In this context, the line "Don't believe in yourself" could as well be meant as an optimistic imperative: Don't believe in what you are right now, believe in your potential to overcome all those limitations and to become much more than what you are now. I think this makes sense in the concept of the whole album: Changes: the act of becoming, not being. Oh! You Pretty Things: the "Ãœbermensch" is yet to come, Homo Sapiens is old, weak, weary etc. and now it's time to make way for something better. Life on Mars?: he's fed up with mankind which keeps repeating itself, feeling trapped, sick of man's mediocrity.

    Those are of course only elements within the songs, go figure yourself what you believe them to mean.

    For Nietzsche the "self" can also be a trap, a prison that keeps us from evolving. What we "are" is not some kind of God given identity, but something that has its origins in the course of history with all the laws of the monotheistic religions that have been forced upon us so many times that they have become a part of our identity that has to be overcome.

    Isaakon July 14, 2011   Link

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