Welcome to my Bowie blog. Hope you like it and visit more often!

I’m going to start featuring some of my favorite Bowie lyrics on the blog. IMO, one of the things that has always separated Bowie from anyone else has been his rather unique writing style. In his hey-day, his lyrics were often complex and full of double-entendre that left the song in it’s finished form translatable to just about whatever you wanted it to mean. Because of that, I’d like to have other people’s interpretations as comments. I have my own, but that doesn’t mean anything.

The song, lyric wise, that takes the cake IMO, is Cygnet Committee. It rambles on and on and on for about ten minutes and he never stops singing the entire time. To me, the song is about revolution, but with a very different take than the Beatles were demanding. It was how a revolution builds from the bottom up and corrupts itself with power. To make it a little more interesting, he views that revolution from two separate perspectives, a benefactor and the revolutionary. In this case, the benefactor is the victim of a corrupt revolutionary running on love, freedom, and economic class. I really see this as Bowie’s interpretation of the Russian revolution. Let me know what you think. However, there are deeper intonations basically questioning religion in general: “Where all is God, and God is just a word.” Think about that for a minute. Then fire up my version down there somewhere, you have to sing it yourself, so here are the lyrics:

I bless you madly, sadly as I tie my shoes
I love you badly, just in time, at times, I guess
Because of you I need to rest
Because it’s you that sets the test

So much has gone and little is new
And as the sparrow sings
Dawn chorus for
Someone else to hear
The Thinker sits alone growing older
And so bitter

I gave Them life
I gave Them all
They drained my very soul…dry
I crushed my heart to ease Their pains
No thought for me remains there
Nothing can They spare
What of me?
Who praised Their efforts to be free?
Words of strength and care and sympathy
I opened doors that would have blocked Their way
I braved Their cause to guide, for little pay
I ravaged at my finance just for Those
Those whose claims were steeped in peace, tranquility
Those who said a new world, new ways ever free
Those whose promises stretched in hope and grace for me

I bless you madly, sadly as I tie my shoes
I love you badly, just in time, at times, I guess
Because of you I need to rest, oh yes
Because it’s you that sets the test

So much has gone and little is new
And as the sunrise stream
Flickers on me,
My friends talk
Of glory, untold dream, where all is God and God is just a word

“We had a friend, a talking man
Who spoke of many powers he had
Not of the best of men, but Ours
We used him
We let him use his powers
We let him fill Our needs
Now We are strong

And the road is coming to its end
Now the damned have no time to make amends
No purse of token fortune stands in Our way
The silent guns of love will blast the sky

We broke the ruptured structure built of age
Our weapons were the tongues of crying rage
Where money stood
We planted seeds of rebirth
And stabbed the backs of fathers
Sons of dirt

Infiltrated business cesspools
Hating through Our sleeves
Yea, and We slit the Catholic throat
Stoned the poor on slogans such as

Wish You Could Hear
Love Is All We Need
Kick Out The Jams
Kick Out Your Mother
Cut Up Your Friend
Screw Up Your Brother or He’ll Get You In the End

And We Know the Flag of Love is from Above
And We Can Force You to Be Free
And We Can Force You to Believe

And I close my eyes and tighten up my brain
For I once read a book in which the lovers were slain
For they knew not the words of the Free States’ refrain
It said

I believe in the Power of Good
I Believe in the State of Love
I Will Fight For the Right to be Right
I Will Kill for the Good of the Fight for the Right to be Right

And I open my eyes to look around
And I see a child laid slain on the ground
As a love machine lumbers through desolation rows
Ploughing down man, woman, listening to its command
But not hearing anymore
Not hearing anymore
Just the shrieks from the old rich

And I Want to Believe
In the madness that calls now
And I want to Believe
That a light’s shining through
Somehow

And I Want to Believe
And You Want to Believe
And We Want to Believe
And We Want to Live
Oh, We Want to Live

We Want to Live
We Want to Live
We Want to Live
We Want to Live
We Want to Live

I Want to Live
I Want to Live
I Want to Live
I Want to Live
I Want to Live
I Want to Live

Live
Live
Liiive

• Here is my version of it.
  

  Bowie DEFINITELY needs to update this song, it’s a classic that could only sound better with new technology.

• Here is the original which appeared on the original Man of Words, Man of Music, re-released as Space Oddity.
• The only live version I’m aware of is on Bowie at the Beeb. Get it. It’s the best compilation of rare live Bowie songs there is.
• Bowie’s reputed as telling someone during his VH1 all request show that it’s impossible to know all the words to the song. I do and sing it all the time to the version I made. Nothing passes 10 minutes travelling better than wailing Cygnet Committee. Just have to trust me on that.

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