There is an unspoken context to this song that relates to David Bowie's odyssey through the turbulent, late-seventies period in which he wrote it. I shouldn't need to mention here that Bowie had only a few years earlier invented the idea of the "character" front man. I never thought Bowie was really Ziggy, or Major Tom, or Aladdin. I always believed that these were characters Bowie created to express things directly, that he couldn't as David Jones. I also realize that when he played these characters, he did a bit more than act: he lived them out on stage and off. This was hard for Bowie. The Thin White Duke was the hardest, and In my opinion, this song is Bowie's 1980 rejection of that character.
I will always associate this song with the Thin White Duke. I interpret it as an openly political statement about how the mainstream social media enforces political agendas through conformity (during this period, young people listened to music and went to concerts for information about their peers' political ideas and how to "fit in"). The hard thing to accept about this song is that it is about Fascism, and Bowie's commentary doesn't necessarily lead you to conclude that he thinks it is such a bad thing. That's actually the Thin White Duke you're hearing, not Bowie. Not that you'd get it from the song, but really everybody should know why he rejected the Thin White Duke and why the guilt about that period of his life hounded his private thoughts to the grave. He felt responsible for Lennon's death.
In 1976 he gave an interview to Cameron Crowe (for Playboy) in which he said the following:
Playboy: You’ve often said that you believe very strongly in fascism. Yet you also claim you’ll one day run for Prime Minister of England. More media manipulation?
Bowie: "Christ, everything is a media manipulation. I’d love to enter politics. I will one day. I’d adore to be Prime Minister. And, yes, I believe very strongly in fascism. The only way we can speed up the sort of liberalism that’s hanging foul in the air at the moment is to speed up the progress of a right-wing, totally dictatorial tyranny and get it over as fast as possible. People have always responded with greater efficiency under a regimental leadership. A liberal wastes time saying, “Well, now, what ideas have you got?” Show them what to do, for God’s sake. If you don’t, nothing will get done. I can’t stand people just hanging about. Television is the most successful fascist, needless to say. Rock stars are fascists, too. Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars."
This reminds me of John Lennon declaring the Beatles more popular than Jesus in 1966. It's not that we intellectually can't follow Bowie and understand, as in the case of Lennon, that he is making a rhetorical argument about mass media's political influence and its manipulation of class conflict and society. Like Lennon, he came to regret the analogy quickly. Lennon, by 1980, had been associated with the failure of the 60's left, and hadn't released an album in years. The Metal, Disco and Punk scenes then nascent had completely rejected the Lennon utopia envisioned by Imagine, and left it behind for a brave new world of fascism. Now the Thin White Duke's comments in Playboy didn't seem so tame.
With the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, Ronald Reagan in November 1980, and a month later, the assassination of John Lennon, many of the things he forecast as desirable in his 1976 interview had come true - to his horror! He gave this interview to NME in 1980, by which time he had already realized the damage he had done:
"That whole Station To Station tour was done under duress. I was out of my mind totally, completely crazed. Really. But the main thing I was functioning on was, as far as that whole thing about Hitler and rightism was concerned, it was mythology."
"This whole racist thing which came up, quite inevitably and rightly. But, and I know this sounds terribly naive, but none of that had actually occurred to me, inasmuch as I’d been working and still do work with Black musicians for the past six or seven years. And we’d all talk about it together: about the Arthurian period, about the magical side of the whole Nazi campaign, and about the mythology involved."
Mixed up too of course were my own fucking characters. The Thin White Duke, and throwing him, it was like kicking a drug. There was such an addictive thing about what was happening there, that actually being able to ride that particular storm, I was able to send a lot to those demons back to their — well, wherever it is they live. Altogether, none of it is something to be dealt with unless you’re in a particularly stable frame of mind."
Bowie is a complex character. I wrote this because this song goes a lot deeper in his overall work than the comments give it credit for.
@dblentendr Nice thesis, there. I like the overall theme, but it picks so many associated things as related to one thing that it does, in my opinion, lose its thread to the point of rambling. As for Bowie's different characters, well, simply, they were an outward manifestation of schizophrenia. If an everyday person went about as 'different characters' nobody would say, "How creatively daring", they'd say, "What a lunatic", and rightly so, but the entertainment industry permits that type of thing as 'normal' and allows it. I do hope you're in a well place, though
@dblentendr Nice thesis, there. I like the overall theme, but it picks so many associated things as related to one thing that it does, in my opinion, lose its thread to the point of rambling. As for Bowie's different characters, well, simply, they were an outward manifestation of schizophrenia. If an everyday person went about as 'different characters' nobody would say, "How creatively daring", they'd say, "What a lunatic", and rightly so, but the entertainment industry permits that type of thing as 'normal' and allows it. I do hope you're in a well place, though
@exobscura
Thank you for your gentle criticism and reflective commentary, from out of the darkness as it were. There was too much to write, but I'm satisfied you got the gist from my rambling. Consider the lyrics from "Ashes to Ashes". Recall that the phrase is used almost exclusively in the context of a funeral liturgy, and I think the lyrics support my (our) interpretation of Bowie's growing uneasiness about fame and being on top (strung out on heaven's high- with Major Tom, Aladdin, The Duke, etc) while at the same time "hitting an all time low" (on the...
@exobscura
Thank you for your gentle criticism and reflective commentary, from out of the darkness as it were. There was too much to write, but I'm satisfied you got the gist from my rambling. Consider the lyrics from "Ashes to Ashes". Recall that the phrase is used almost exclusively in the context of a funeral liturgy, and I think the lyrics support my (our) interpretation of Bowie's growing uneasiness about fame and being on top (strung out on heaven's high- with Major Tom, Aladdin, The Duke, etc) while at the same time "hitting an all time low" (on the Berlin Trilogy) as "himself" (in terms of commercial sales and popular appeal). David was stuck with his valuable friends.
There is also a double-entendre with "Low", which was the first album of the Berlin Trilogy, and has been reported by Eno, Bowie and Visconti as "David's" (i.e.: not any of his characters) first sober, first-person work. It was an artistic triumph, critically praised, but it was also his least successful (financially) up to that time.
The album in which Ashes to Ashes appeared is also the album where Fashion appears. Released 9/12/80, It was written by Bowie to have a broader commercial appeal. It certainly did, but the perverse timing of the Lennon incident, and his personal experience of acting The Elephant Man at the time, (an abused and exploited freak show performer), permanently altered David. We wouldn't hear from him again till Let's Dance, (which owes a great debt to Lyric of Love to Leah, by AC, but I digress.)
It's mostly forgotten that Bowie was performing in the Broadway version of The Elephant Man in the title role at the time of Lennon's assassination, and during that period he was in regular contact with Lennon. It's mostly forgotten too that M.D.Chapman attended a performance of the Elephant Man, in the days leading up to 12/8/80, and that MDC had considered Bowie as a possible target before settling on the more readily accessible Lennon.
Without overstaying your good graces, I suggest looking at the Wikipedia page for Young Americans (on which Fame appears, and to which Lennon had contributed so much, including vocals), then have a look at the page for Scary Monsters. Note that with the exception of Carlos Alomar, he never again worked with the band that had been in place since the Station to Station album. Lennon is why he left that world, and the scary monsters within it, behind. Imho, of course.
@dblentendr Thanks for your very gracious reply. I'm in a very good place, thanks. So, the things you pointed out are very much known to me. I am quite a sad Bowie obsessive, especially his 70s heyday, who has been through intervention and recovery and who's now on the mend. The MDC assassination thought on Bowie, as well as the Alomar/Lennon things are the stuff of Bowie Lore as I write; even his 'discovery' of a young Luther Vandross is well documented. I also know of his sojourn in NYC playing John Merrick and his fears, then exiting the city,...
@dblentendr Thanks for your very gracious reply. I'm in a very good place, thanks. So, the things you pointed out are very much known to me. I am quite a sad Bowie obsessive, especially his 70s heyday, who has been through intervention and recovery and who's now on the mend. The MDC assassination thought on Bowie, as well as the Alomar/Lennon things are the stuff of Bowie Lore as I write; even his 'discovery' of a young Luther Vandross is well documented. I also know of his sojourn in NYC playing John Merrick and his fears, then exiting the city, after Lennon's shooting. Bowie was certainly at the top of his game there in the 1970s, his Midas-touch helped Iggy and Reed gain mainstream success through his very much needed auspices. That's definitely undisputed. Though, the 1980s were certainly a different animal for Mr. Bowie. His muse seemed to evaporate as his mainstream success soared, but the public can never be complimented for their discerning taste, so that's just the way cookie crumbled. Quite personally, I think TMWSTW, Diamond Dogs, Station to Station and Low are by far the BEST things he ever did, beyond compare and in their own perfect little spheres of heaven floating around some beautiful darkstar by the cusp of Orion. 'Scary Monsters' was really the last decent, cohesive thing he gave us, in my opinion, and left the seeds for the mélange of followers who picked up his 'axe' and broke as much ice as there is on Europa to smash into the multicoloured world of 80s entertainment that there was for us to savour. The man had the knack of making things from the scraps of others and make unrepeatably, glorious pieces of Art. These days they say that there's no such thing, but from all I've gathered from the man, he was definitely a qualified genius. Only a few such souls have given us the perfection of the artistic vision, Prince is another, and they're a rarified quality that must be preserved and revered like gems of irrefutable import like the precious souls they are
There is an unspoken context to this song that relates to David Bowie's odyssey through the turbulent, late-seventies period in which he wrote it. I shouldn't need to mention here that Bowie had only a few years earlier invented the idea of the "character" front man. I never thought Bowie was really Ziggy, or Major Tom, or Aladdin. I always believed that these were characters Bowie created to express things directly, that he couldn't as David Jones. I also realize that when he played these characters, he did a bit more than act: he lived them out on stage and off. This was hard for Bowie. The Thin White Duke was the hardest, and In my opinion, this song is Bowie's 1980 rejection of that character.
I will always associate this song with the Thin White Duke. I interpret it as an openly political statement about how the mainstream social media enforces political agendas through conformity (during this period, young people listened to music and went to concerts for information about their peers' political ideas and how to "fit in"). The hard thing to accept about this song is that it is about Fascism, and Bowie's commentary doesn't necessarily lead you to conclude that he thinks it is such a bad thing. That's actually the Thin White Duke you're hearing, not Bowie. Not that you'd get it from the song, but really everybody should know why he rejected the Thin White Duke and why the guilt about that period of his life hounded his private thoughts to the grave. He felt responsible for Lennon's death.
In 1976 he gave an interview to Cameron Crowe (for Playboy) in which he said the following: Playboy: You’ve often said that you believe very strongly in fascism. Yet you also claim you’ll one day run for Prime Minister of England. More media manipulation? Bowie: "Christ, everything is a media manipulation. I’d love to enter politics. I will one day. I’d adore to be Prime Minister. And, yes, I believe very strongly in fascism. The only way we can speed up the sort of liberalism that’s hanging foul in the air at the moment is to speed up the progress of a right-wing, totally dictatorial tyranny and get it over as fast as possible. People have always responded with greater efficiency under a regimental leadership. A liberal wastes time saying, “Well, now, what ideas have you got?” Show them what to do, for God’s sake. If you don’t, nothing will get done. I can’t stand people just hanging about. Television is the most successful fascist, needless to say. Rock stars are fascists, too. Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars."
This reminds me of John Lennon declaring the Beatles more popular than Jesus in 1966. It's not that we intellectually can't follow Bowie and understand, as in the case of Lennon, that he is making a rhetorical argument about mass media's political influence and its manipulation of class conflict and society. Like Lennon, he came to regret the analogy quickly. Lennon, by 1980, had been associated with the failure of the 60's left, and hadn't released an album in years. The Metal, Disco and Punk scenes then nascent had completely rejected the Lennon utopia envisioned by Imagine, and left it behind for a brave new world of fascism. Now the Thin White Duke's comments in Playboy didn't seem so tame.
With the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, Ronald Reagan in November 1980, and a month later, the assassination of John Lennon, many of the things he forecast as desirable in his 1976 interview had come true - to his horror! He gave this interview to NME in 1980, by which time he had already realized the damage he had done:
"That whole Station To Station tour was done under duress. I was out of my mind totally, completely crazed. Really. But the main thing I was functioning on was, as far as that whole thing about Hitler and rightism was concerned, it was mythology."
"This whole racist thing which came up, quite inevitably and rightly. But, and I know this sounds terribly naive, but none of that had actually occurred to me, inasmuch as I’d been working and still do work with Black musicians for the past six or seven years. And we’d all talk about it together: about the Arthurian period, about the magical side of the whole Nazi campaign, and about the mythology involved."
Mixed up too of course were my own fucking characters. The Thin White Duke, and throwing him, it was like kicking a drug. There was such an addictive thing about what was happening there, that actually being able to ride that particular storm, I was able to send a lot to those demons back to their — well, wherever it is they live. Altogether, none of it is something to be dealt with unless you’re in a particularly stable frame of mind."
Bowie is a complex character. I wrote this because this song goes a lot deeper in his overall work than the comments give it credit for.
[Edit: Font anomaly corrected]
@dblentendr Nice thesis, there. I like the overall theme, but it picks so many associated things as related to one thing that it does, in my opinion, lose its thread to the point of rambling. As for Bowie's different characters, well, simply, they were an outward manifestation of schizophrenia. If an everyday person went about as 'different characters' nobody would say, "How creatively daring", they'd say, "What a lunatic", and rightly so, but the entertainment industry permits that type of thing as 'normal' and allows it. I do hope you're in a well place, though
@dblentendr Nice thesis, there. I like the overall theme, but it picks so many associated things as related to one thing that it does, in my opinion, lose its thread to the point of rambling. As for Bowie's different characters, well, simply, they were an outward manifestation of schizophrenia. If an everyday person went about as 'different characters' nobody would say, "How creatively daring", they'd say, "What a lunatic", and rightly so, but the entertainment industry permits that type of thing as 'normal' and allows it. I do hope you're in a well place, though
@exobscura Thank you for your gentle criticism and reflective commentary, from out of the darkness as it were. There was too much to write, but I'm satisfied you got the gist from my rambling. Consider the lyrics from "Ashes to Ashes". Recall that the phrase is used almost exclusively in the context of a funeral liturgy, and I think the lyrics support my (our) interpretation of Bowie's growing uneasiness about fame and being on top (strung out on heaven's high- with Major Tom, Aladdin, The Duke, etc) while at the same time "hitting an all time low" (on the...
@exobscura Thank you for your gentle criticism and reflective commentary, from out of the darkness as it were. There was too much to write, but I'm satisfied you got the gist from my rambling. Consider the lyrics from "Ashes to Ashes". Recall that the phrase is used almost exclusively in the context of a funeral liturgy, and I think the lyrics support my (our) interpretation of Bowie's growing uneasiness about fame and being on top (strung out on heaven's high- with Major Tom, Aladdin, The Duke, etc) while at the same time "hitting an all time low" (on the Berlin Trilogy) as "himself" (in terms of commercial sales and popular appeal). David was stuck with his valuable friends.
There is also a double-entendre with "Low", which was the first album of the Berlin Trilogy, and has been reported by Eno, Bowie and Visconti as "David's" (i.e.: not any of his characters) first sober, first-person work. It was an artistic triumph, critically praised, but it was also his least successful (financially) up to that time.
The album in which Ashes to Ashes appeared is also the album where Fashion appears. Released 9/12/80, It was written by Bowie to have a broader commercial appeal. It certainly did, but the perverse timing of the Lennon incident, and his personal experience of acting The Elephant Man at the time, (an abused and exploited freak show performer), permanently altered David. We wouldn't hear from him again till Let's Dance, (which owes a great debt to Lyric of Love to Leah, by AC, but I digress.)
It's mostly forgotten that Bowie was performing in the Broadway version of The Elephant Man in the title role at the time of Lennon's assassination, and during that period he was in regular contact with Lennon. It's mostly forgotten too that M.D.Chapman attended a performance of the Elephant Man, in the days leading up to 12/8/80, and that MDC had considered Bowie as a possible target before settling on the more readily accessible Lennon.
Without overstaying your good graces, I suggest looking at the Wikipedia page for Young Americans (on which Fame appears, and to which Lennon had contributed so much, including vocals), then have a look at the page for Scary Monsters. Note that with the exception of Carlos Alomar, he never again worked with the band that had been in place since the Station to Station album. Lennon is why he left that world, and the scary monsters within it, behind. Imho, of course.
What do you think? I hope you are well as well.
@dblentendr Thanks for your very gracious reply. I'm in a very good place, thanks. So, the things you pointed out are very much known to me. I am quite a sad Bowie obsessive, especially his 70s heyday, who has been through intervention and recovery and who's now on the mend. The MDC assassination thought on Bowie, as well as the Alomar/Lennon things are the stuff of Bowie Lore as I write; even his 'discovery' of a young Luther Vandross is well documented. I also know of his sojourn in NYC playing John Merrick and his fears, then exiting the city,...
@dblentendr Thanks for your very gracious reply. I'm in a very good place, thanks. So, the things you pointed out are very much known to me. I am quite a sad Bowie obsessive, especially his 70s heyday, who has been through intervention and recovery and who's now on the mend. The MDC assassination thought on Bowie, as well as the Alomar/Lennon things are the stuff of Bowie Lore as I write; even his 'discovery' of a young Luther Vandross is well documented. I also know of his sojourn in NYC playing John Merrick and his fears, then exiting the city, after Lennon's shooting. Bowie was certainly at the top of his game there in the 1970s, his Midas-touch helped Iggy and Reed gain mainstream success through his very much needed auspices. That's definitely undisputed. Though, the 1980s were certainly a different animal for Mr. Bowie. His muse seemed to evaporate as his mainstream success soared, but the public can never be complimented for their discerning taste, so that's just the way cookie crumbled. Quite personally, I think TMWSTW, Diamond Dogs, Station to Station and Low are by far the BEST things he ever did, beyond compare and in their own perfect little spheres of heaven floating around some beautiful darkstar by the cusp of Orion. 'Scary Monsters' was really the last decent, cohesive thing he gave us, in my opinion, and left the seeds for the mélange of followers who picked up his 'axe' and broke as much ice as there is on Europa to smash into the multicoloured world of 80s entertainment that there was for us to savour. The man had the knack of making things from the scraps of others and make unrepeatably, glorious pieces of Art. These days they say that there's no such thing, but from all I've gathered from the man, he was definitely a qualified genius. Only a few such souls have given us the perfection of the artistic vision, Prince is another, and they're a rarified quality that must be preserved and revered like gems of irrefutable import like the precious souls they are