Category Archives: Sound

Seven degrees of Bowie – U2

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About a week or so ago, I had a discussion with my teenage step-daughter.  She’s hip.  She keeps one eye covered with hair at all times so the world can’t see her face.  She’s not emo tho.  Be sure to understand that.  During some strange dinner time conversation, she questioned the fact that I seemed to have a David Bowie comment about anything pop we discuss.  She really seemed to think I was stretching things a bit.  I explained to her that the reason I focused on the world according to David Bowie is because he sort of is in the middle of everything musical for the last thirty years or so.  I was fairly confident in my claim.

We then hopped in the car and drove to Atlanta, Georgia, to watch U2.  Now, the only U2 connection was the fact that Bowie worked with a fella named Brian Eno.  Brian Eno would later hook up with U2 to produce an album called The Unforgettable Fire.  That was a pretty good mix.  Bowie and Eno were a good mix as well, delivering one of Bowie’s most recognizable songs to this day.  Eno has again teamed up with U2 to produce the album U2 is supporting for this tour.  So, imagine how I felt when U2 was preparing to hit the stage and they played one song over the PA before the band came on:

David Bowie of course. And, in deference to Eno in some way or another, not a song Eno had anything to do with. They could have done Heroes…….

Needless to say, I had to get a dig in on the young and inexperienced step-daughter.

Tomorrow I’m taking the boy to see a movie that features this song:

During their shows, they often do Heroes, a Bowie/Eno collaboration.

And, they opened for U2 a time or two.

Small world huh?

Comme d’habitude

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I got an email alert about a guy, David Lister, who went to a show by The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain. They did a joke segment they called “plagiarism”. It’s pretty clever. Here it is:

Only thing is, there is no joke. And, as with every other form of entertainment, parody is not plagiarism.

It all started with this fella, Claude Francois wrote a melody called Comme d’habitude. It was a pretty piece. He got a fella named Jacques Revaux to put some lyrics to it. The original version’s lyrics were about a strained relationship. They go something like this ( pardon the bad Google translation ):

I get up
And I’ll upsets
You do not wake up, As usual
I back you on the sheet
I fear that you have cold, As usual
My hand caresses your hair
Almost despite myself, As usual
But you turn your back on me, As usual

Then I get dressed quickly
I leave the room, As usual
All alone I drink my coffee
I’m late, As usual
Quietly I leave the house
Everything is gray outside,As usual
I’m cold
I raise my neck, As usual

As usual
All day
I’ll pretend play
As usual
I’ll smile
As usual
I’ll even laugh
As usual
Finally I will live
As usual

And then the day will go
I will return, As usual
You will exit
And not back yet, As usual
All alone I will go to bed
In this cold bed, As usual
My tears I hide, As usual

As usual
Even the night
I’ll pretend play
As usual
You come home
As usual
I’ll wait
As usual
You smile at me
As usual

As usual
You undress
As usual
You lie
As usual
They embraced
As usual

Sorta strikes me as a song about someone who’s struggling day to day with finding anything meaningful. I know the feeling.

Bowie chanced upon the song and decided to put some English lyrics to it. His idea basically went nowhere. Then, someone else came up with the same idea. Paul Anka had also heard the song. He was hanging out with Frank Sinatra, and the story is Frank was pondering retiring, but wanted Anka to write a song for him. So, Anka, armed with Claude Francois’ melody, put “Frank” words to the song:

And now the end is near
So I face the final curtain
My friend, I’ll say it clear
I’ll state my case of which I’m certain

I’ve lived a life that’s full
I’ve traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way

Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exception

I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
Oh, and more, much more than this
I did it my way

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you know
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried
I’ve had my fails, my share of losing
And now as tears subside
I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way
Oh, no, no not me
I did it my way

For what is a man, what has he got
If not himself, then he has not
To say the words he truly feels
And not the words he would reveal
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way

Now, I get it. Frank Sinatra was not a person who ever presented the aura of being blase. He never struck people as struggling for something to be excited about. He was as arrogant and egotistical a personality as you’d find. He was the mob. He was the godfather. He did it his way, you did it his way. The lyrics were perfect for Frank Sinatra. It didn’t hurt that Frank Sinatra could belt it out loud:

Needless to say, Bowie’s version got stomped all over on. It disappeared. However, the whole incident did not. Seeing his idea become someone else’s monster hit didn’t fade for a while. So, when he signed with RCA with his first major recording deal, one of the very first songs he did, armed with Mick Ronson on strings and Rick Wakeman on piano, was a little piece called “Life on Mars”. Now, if you listen closely, it very strongly resembles My Way:

And, of course, there’s the lyrics:

It’s a god-awful small affair
To the girl with the mousy hair
But her mummy is yelling “No”
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she’s hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a saddening bore
‘Cause she’s lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?

It’s on America’s tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck for fame
‘Cause Lennon’s on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
But the film is a saddening bore
‘Cause I wrote it ten times or more
It’s about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?

About people who are bored. Blase. Struggling to find something meaningful in life. A lot truer to the original song than My Way.

One final irony. Sinatra’s retirement wasn’t a kept secret. He had talked about it a long time. In 1971, he actually had a retirement performance. The last act to perform before Sinatra took the stage was Barbra Streisand. Sinatra came out of retirement to release “My Way”. At pretty much the same time, Barbra re-did Life on Mars?. Coincidence?

Wake Up

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This has been way too long getting here. Bowie fronting Arcade Fire in 2005.

Silly Boy Blue at the Tibet House

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David Bowie has worked for all kinds of charities.  Most of them not your run-of-the-mill stuff.  One of them is something called Tibet House.  They strive to preserve the culture of Tibet.  Oddly enough, Bowie recreated one of my all-time favorite obscure songs from way back when, for this charity event.  Which, by the way, is not held in Tibet.  And, I guess not so oddly, the song is about Tibet.  So, without further ado, the song about Tibet sung at an event for Tibet but not in Tibet, Silly Boy Blue:

While scarping this video from boobtube, I was filled in on the fact that Bowie did indeed remix Silly Boy Blue for a project album called “Toy”. “Toy” apparently never made the cut and Silly Boy Blue will remain very obscure. However, given Bowie’s updated re-mix, I’d just as soon stick with the original. I’ve got my ideas on how it should sound in the 21st century:

Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!

My top 20

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My friends Jeni-Q and Cristin put together their Top 20 Bowie songs over at Jeni-Q’s place. That seemed rather simple enough. So, I thought I’d do it myself. First off, here’s theirs.

For Jeni it was:

For Cristin it was:

For me it was easy and I rifled off my top 20 in about five minutes:

No, but wait, Breaking Glass has to be on there somewhere. For that matter, Ashes To Ashes has to be on there somewhere. Sheez, All The Young Dudes has to be on there somewhere as well. Dangit, Under Pressure HAS to be on there as well. For that matter, Scary Monsters always makes for a great singing. And, my secret indulgence has always been Absolute Beginners. If I’m frustrated or aggravated, Five Years was always a good release, so maybe it should be on there too? Nah, Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide does that better. Mellow moods always had to have Word On A Wing. Just had to. Feelin raunchy? Gotta have Cracked Actor. Feel like rockin out? Gotta have Suffragette City and Rebel Rebel. Feelin weird? Gotta have Life On Mars?, Memory Of A Free Festival, Sweet Thing/Candidate/Reprise, and The Width Of A Circle. Feeling insightful………

Maybe this ain’t so easy after all……

Heroes and the Glass Spider

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One of my favorite performances of ‘Heroes’ was during Glass Spider.  Now, a lot of critics panned the tour.  I am however, biased.  I was there.  It was what I expected of Bowie.  A little glam, some bizarre choreography, and great tunes performed to perfection.  It was his second “happy” tour, featuring a lot of his recent hits at the time.  However, he threw in some staples, and, some off-beat stuff such as Sons of the Silent Age.  However, the song that got me absolutely over the edge was the same song that always got me pumped:
 
Immediately after ‘Heroes’ was over, and I was still enthralled with the entire effect of the sound and vision, my date asked me when he was going to perform White Wedding or Rebel Yell.  That was her last concert with me.

Transformations

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Most of Bowie’s most popular songs, and some of his lesser known songs, don’t quite resemble the originals.  Space Oddity has taken on several re-mixes and re-recordings.  But, it stayed pretty close to the original.  The song that always caught my attention when it came to do-overs is Moonage Daydream.  Now, this is purely an audio experience because I’m not sure there is any video footage of Bowie performing as Arnold Corns.  As such, in order to fully appreciate the scope of this transformation, you have to listen to the entire version of both to appreciate the conclusion I come to at the end of this post.  Ready?  For newbies, I’m quite certain you’re not expecting what you are about to hear.  This is the original version of Moonage Daydream, as recorded by David Bowie performing as Arnold Corns:

Now, the version everyone’s used to:

Finished? Now, the conclusion you’ve been waiting for:
It’s amazing what Mick Ronson can do to a song, huh?

Bowie does Scarlett Johansson?

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OK, so what does an aging rocker do when he’s tired of crowd surfing and trying to one-up teens screaming mindless words to over-abused way-too-distorted chords?  Why, hang out with the hottest Hollywood babe going, of course:

That’s what Bowie is doing these days.  Folks, he’s old enough to be her grandfather.  He was nailing models before she was even born.  Now, granted I don’t think his current model-wife would allow extra-marital flings at this point, he did the next best thing I would think.  He did what he does best.  He recorded an album with her.  Now, nothing Bowie’s ever done has screamed normal.  So, he teams up with the hottest Hollywood babe going and records a couple of songs originally recorded by Tom Waits:

Now, for those unfamiliar with Tom, he sings like a real man.  Gravelly baritone.  Nothing artistic or fancy about Tom, just ballads with simple music.  Nothing glam either.  In other words, nothing like a red-hot babe or a artsy glam-rock new-wave kinda guy.  Nothing.  So, to me, this is perfect.  I’d like to catch a tune or two from this album.  And, I will.
( Is it JUST a coincedence that Scarlett and Bowie were in Spongebob flicks as well? Gotta wonder. )

The Prettiest Star

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Now, song for song, in my own opinion, Bowie peaked from 1969 to about 1973 or so. He’s had some great to good songs since, but for sheer volume, those five years he cranked them out en mass. Now, the problem with that is that there is so much awesome content in that period that otherwise excellent songs got lost in the mix. To me one of the best of forgotten songs during that era was The Prettiest Star. Mixed in with The Jean Genie, Time, Panic in Detroit, Cracked Actor, and other songs that screamed for attention, The Prettiest Star was just a very simple, very beautiful song. It almost seemed to be a filler at the time. However, of all the songs on Aladdin Sane, The Prettiest Star probably had the most interesting history. I didn’t realize there even was a history to this song until today when I stumbled upon yet another Youtube viewer made movie where some guy was professing his love for his “prettiest star”, his girlfriend. That’s all fine and good, but the sound of the song caught me by surprise. Take a listen:

This wasn’t The Prettiest Star I grew up with. I thought I had heard every bootleg and version of every song he’s done. I was obviously wrong. In the discussion, they casually mention it’s the pre-Aladdin Sane version with Marc Bolan. How did I NOT know all this? I mean, I had memorized TeenageWildlife.com and all it mentioned there was it was written for Angie. Well, here’s the story according to Wiki.

Following the success of Space Oddity in 1969, Bowie and Visconti went back to the studio to crank out another single. Visconti was insistent on using “London Bye Ta Ta”, Bowie had written another song he used to propose to Angie over the phone. That song was “The Prettiest Star”. At this time Bowie had become friends with Marc Bolan and therefore got Bolan to do the original guitar solos. Bowie won out over Visconti and released The Prettiest Star instead of London Bye Ta Ta. It reputedly sold about 800 copies and was forgotten. Bowie later re-recorded it for Aladdin Sane and Mick Ronson repeated the guitar work note for note.

Now, this whole love story on youtube was getting a little stale. In order to have heard this version, they were probably 50-somethings. But, then it became clearer to me what was going on in an unlikely way. In the 2005 movie Kinky Boots they somehow got ahold of the original Bowie/Bolan version and feature it to a drag queen strutting the catwalk. Now, being as Kinky Boots is only a couple of years old, this means the lovers on Youtube are quite young and the joys of youthful love are being explored to the most appropriate Bowie song. All is perfect again.

The Prettiest Star is one of the songs I feature over there –>

Other than the Kinky Boots soundtrack, I have no clue where it could be found outside of bootlegs.

What it means is one of the clearest messages Bowie ever delivered in any song:

Cold fire, you’ve got everything but cold fire
You will be my rest and peace child
I moved up to take a place, near you

So tired, it’s the sky that makes you feel tried
It’s a trick to make you see wide
It can all but break your heart, in pieces

Staying back in your memory
Are the movies in the dark
How you moved is all it takes
To sing a song of when I loved
The Prettiest Star

One day though it might as well be someday
You and I will rise up all the way
All because of what you are
The Prettiest Star

Staying back in your memory
Are the movies in the past
How you moved is all it takes
To sing a song of when I loved
The Prettiest Star

One day though it might as well be someday
You and I will rise up all the way
All because of what you are
The Prettiest Star

It meant he thought he was going to hitch a ride on Angie’s stardom because she was so beautiful. Amazing how things don’t always work out like one expects.

Arnold Corns

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In 1971, Bowie was busy touring, sorta, busier chasing records companies, and writing music.  Now, this is pre-Hunky Dory we’re talking about.  Bowie wasn’t too heavy at this time.  However, he was already into his changing personnas.  And, while bored on the road, he was writing his big project.  As the story goes, RCA wasn’t too keen on his new project since basically no one knew who Bowie was, but he was wanting to do a double-lp anyway ( which was pricey in those days ).  So, Bowie decided to do a test run with his new line-up and release some of the songs RCA was bucking.  His new line-up was quite odd to say the least:

Freddi aka Rudy and Bowie

He enlisted Freddi Buretti, aka Rudy Valentino, to be his front man.  According to legend, Rudy didn’t really sing or play any instruments.  He eventually became Bowie’s designed for the Ziggy tours.  Rudy eventually became immortalized in song:

Tony went to fight in Belfast
Rudi stayed at home to starve
I could make it all worthwhile
as a rock & roll star….

That’s opening lines to “Star” on Ziggy Stardust.  Bowie also hooked with a band called “Ronno” as his backup.  Ronno consisted of Mick Ronson on guitar, Trevor Bolder on bass, and Mick Woodmansey on drums.  Originally Ronno was going to go it alone after the demos, but apparently changed their mind.  This odd lineup resulted in four songs:

  1. “Hang on to yourself”.  This became a staple opening song for Bowie on several tours.
  2. “Looking for a friend”. Pretty much disappeared after it was recorded.
  3. “Man in the middle”.  Pretty much disappeared after it was recorded, but has been a cult favorite for Bowie fans since. And last but not least:
  4. “Moonage Daydream”.  Now, to me, this is where it gets odd.  This ain’t the Moonage Daydream you’re used to.  This is something completely different.  I had it bootleg version for a long time and loved it.  However, the CD did what all CD’s eventually do and refused to play after a few years.  I went a long time without hearing it.  However, a while back, JeniQ wondered why her version of Moonage Daydream didn’t have the common opening lyrics of “I’m an alligator”……  To which I had to reply with the only idea I had, she MAY have the original Arnold Corns version.  To say the least, it’s different.  I bittorrented and found a copy of the original Arnold Corns demos.  It flooded me with memories.  And, it was exactly as I had explained.  It has almost totally different lyrics.  So, I was trying to figure some way to host the songs here when I stumbled upon a youtube edit some guy did with the original Moonage Daydream.  I was flabbergasted.  So, without further todo, here it is.  Moonage Daydream as performed by Arnold Corns:


It’s so different, yet eerily the same. I love both versions!

Needless to say, after Bowie formed the Spiders, Ronno was no more. Freddi returned to the fashion industry as far as I cantell. I can’t find anything on the guy at this time. Not sure what his contribution was to creating Moonage Daydream, if any.