Guy Fournier did a strange thing on Canadien radio last week, he claimed that defecating was more enjoyable at his age than sex. For that, his career is dead. But, the bigger picture to me is I think I’d rather be dead than enjoy a poop more than a poke. My opinion may change over time, but at this time, I’m serious. However, the more important thing and why Guy is featured here is because his entire episode brought back memories of one of the best written songs Bowie ever did. It got very little attention at the time, but it’s a hell of a song. Per the norm of the Diamond Dogs
era, the lyrics are incredible. Let’s look, shall we? From We Are The Dead:
Something kind of hit me today
I looked at you and wondered if you saw things my way
People will hold us to blame
It hit me today, it hit me today
We’re taking it hard all the time
Why don’t we pass it by?
Just reply, you’ve changed your mind
We’re fighting with the eyes of the blind
Taking it hard, taking it hard
Yet now, We feel that we are paper, choking on you nightly
They tell me “Son, we want you, be elusive, but don’t walk far”
For we’re breaking in the new boys, deceive your next of kin
For you’re dancing where the dogs decay, defecating ecstasy
You’re just an ally of the leecher
Locator for the virgin King, but I love you in your fuck-me pumps
And your nimble dress that trails
Oh, dress yourself, my urchin one, for I hear them on the rails
Because of all we’ve seen, because of all we’ve said
We are the dead
One thing kind of touched me today
I looked at you and counted all the times we’d laid
Pressing our love through the night
Knowing it’s right, knowing it’s right
Now I’m hoping someone will care
Living on the breath of a hope to be shared
Trusting on the sons of our love
That someone will care, someone will care
But now, we’re today’s scrambled creatures, locked in tomorrow’s double feature
Heaven’s on the pillow, its silence competes with hell
It’s a twenty-four hour service, guaranteed to make you tell
And the streets are full of press men
Bent on getting hung and buried
And the legendary curtains are drawn ’round Baby Bankrupt
Who sucks you while you’re sleeping
It’s the theater of financiers
Count them, fifty ’round a table
White and dressed to kill
Oh caress yourself, my juicy
For my hands have all but withered
Oh dress yourself my urchin one, for I hear them on the stairs
Because of all we’ve seen, because of all we’ve said
We are the dead
We are the dead
We are the dead
This was Bowie painting his vision of Orwell’s 1984. If you read Orwell’s book, it has NOTHING on this nightmare.
A lot of my gripes with today’s music is it lacks imagination and musical creativity. We Are The Dead is exactly the stuff I miss. It’s slow, it’s complicated, the words paint a vision that is easy to see, you definitely can not dance to it, and, to understand it, you not only have to listen carefully to the words, you might even have to whip out a dictionary and do some research. This is a thinking man’s song only. Somehow, for some strange reason, I think it is a song Guy Fournier’s listened to.