Diamond Dogs

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned something fairly obvious about the title of this song/album:

Diamonds are a girl's best friend. Dogs are a man's best friend.

This song sets up the whole post-apocalyptic theme of the album perfectly.

I also say that "Ziggy Stardust," "Aladdin Sane" and "Diamond Dogs" form a glam-rock trilogy and the theme kinda' progresses from album to album. "Ziggy" was sort of all about a rock and roll messiah bringing peace and love to the world but being consumed by his own excess in the end. "Aladdin Sane" is sort of Ziggy's evil twin. Like it's risen from the ashes but instead of representing all the wonderful positive stuff about rock it sort of represents all the nasty stuff, the drugs and sex and fury. And then Diamond Dogs is the aftermath. A world completely consumed by such vices. Whoo, such much thinking...

Just another future song, lonely little kitsch (There's gonna be sorrow) try and wake up tomorrow

The Diamond Dogs album is all future armageddon post nuculear holocaust imagery.

The elevator's broke, so he slides down a rope.

Where've you ever seen a broke down elevator in Manhattan? I see Omega Man reference.

I love the word art.

Mannequins with kill appeal!

Beautiful.

"Future Legend" is an intro to the song Diamond Dogs:

And in the death As the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare The shutters lifted in inches in Temperance Building High on Poacher's Hill And red mutant eyes gaze down on Hunger City No more big wheels

Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes Coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love-Me Avenue Ripping and rewrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now legwarmers Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald Any day now

The Year of the Diamond Dogs

There's the clue to a Diamond Dog, what it is - I guess it's like the album cover picture, a dog person, some bizzaro future creature:

"peoploids split into small tribes Coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers Like packs of dogs"

but since it's David Bowie talking the peoploid probably not literally a half-dog half-person, but what can become of a person in post nuclear holocaust - stripped of all the techne from centuries of industry - we become dogs.

I remember a diamond collar on the cover picture too and this quote:

"Ripping and rewrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now legwarmers Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald "

gives me the picture of people scavenging store fronts, turning fancy furs into clothing and toidy jewlery of the dead wealthy into the decoration of the mutant survivors.

IMAGERY ORGY

"The Halloween Jack is a real cool cat".... Not sure but this could be a reference to Bowie himself. Back when he wrote the song, he had orange and sometimes red hair. "Halloween Jack" = something orange, his hair? "a real cool cat"; the word 'cat' is a slang for a musician. Just a thought.

I always just assumed this song was about kind of decrepit young girls who will do anything for glamour, even though they're desperate and depecable.

This song is the 1984 imagery taken to its logical end. The world has gone to the dogs - and this fits in well with the whole imagery and dirty guitar (Bowie playing) in the album. Almost every song on the album (Sweet Thing/Candidate, Rebel Rebel, We Are the Dead, Big Brother, 1984 etc.) carry on this imagery of the Future Legend. Bowie tried to buy the rights to make this an official 1984 album, but was unable to swing the deal. What a great use of sax and guitar to enhance this image of the world gone to the dogs. Love the "mannequins with kill appeal" line. What artist today would make an album like this? No one.

Y'know, years ago I read what somebody on a "decipher the lyrics" page (possibly You!) had written saying that "Diamond Dogs" had Dhalgren references/comparisons within it or that Bowie had read it and included imagery from it. I searched out the book, slogged my way through it (It's HOOJ and pretty Horrible, IMHO!) and saw what could be construed as references with the woman turning into a tree, etc. However, TODAY, year after doing this backasswards research, I just looked up the fact that Bowie had written/released the tune in 1974; Samuel Delaney, author of Dhalgren, published the book in 1975!!! I think that this would ensure that "Diamond Dogs" had nothing to do with Dhalgren! Looks like I read the book for nothing, but time spent reading books cannot be argued with, even lame ones...

Bowie wrote the album Diamond Dogs as a tribute to the George Orwell book "1984". He approached Mr. Orwell's widow and asked if he could use the name of the book and she said no, so the replacement name was "Diamond Dogs". So, the name of the songs - "We Are the Dead", "1984" and "Big Brother" are in that theme. Winston Smith in "1984" states "We Are the Dead" for example. Certainly, Bowie used to cut up words and incorporate them into songs, but he picked words and phrases that fit the post apocalyptic vision of "1984". He didn't just randomly come up (by chance) with all these type of lyrics on this concept album. The best songs on the Diamond Dogs album are the least commercial - "We Are the Dead" and "Sweet Thing/Candidate". "Future Legend" basically lays out the apocalyptic vision in the beginning of the album. Excellent use of imagery in this album's lyrics.

If you don't like this song then you don't like bowie because this is a great bowie song.