Fave Bowie Songs
I just finished watching a David Bowie concert on my local PBS station (www.kvie.org). I got to asking myself, "What's my favorite Bowie tune?"In high school my theme song was sort of "Little China Girl" because I worked in the China and Crystal department at a local department store. That song came out while I was working there, so my pal Gita dubbed me "Little China Girl."
But I was a Bowie fan well before that album; one of his catchiest songs has got to be "Young Americans." The lyrics are so quick and wry -- and I much love social and political commentary. And, at the time, I felt the song was a nod to my life as a young American (just like I personalized "Little China Girl"). Narcissism looms large in my music ranking, I guess . . .
But, song are not just lyrics - -it is the music that sets a song apart from a poem, after all. So, I'd have to say that my most favorite David Bowie song is one that hits me at the primal, gut level: "Heroes." I love this song because of the music and the sound of his voice (not necessarily the words - heck, I can't even understand all of the words). They're both so haunting and full of desperate hope (I guess the better part of hope is desperation, isn't it). I especially like the version he sings in German ("Helden") - again I cannot understand all of the lyrics, so I connect with the song emotionally.
Emotionally connecting with songs . . .hmmmm, not exactly a news flash. But a fun reminiscence nevertheless. What's your fave Bowie song and why?
posted by cgabor @ 11:05 PM
4 Comments:
this is one i can definitely comment on. every time i hear songs from that album "Let's Dance", which was easily my favorite album in high school, i think of Cathy, and how we were just becoming good friends, and how much each of those songs meant to me at different times. i can admit now that i also secretly felt proud that my musical taste was changing... let's say, to put it mildly, improving. i think the first album i ever bought was Men at Work! oy vey. that yellow album cover seems so bright and embarassing now in my memory....
i, by chance, just got that album again (back then: cassette, now: mini ipod!), and listening to it i can remember back to when my favorite songs were so all-encompassing in my life, how my favorite one changed all the time, and how you got to know people better by endless discussions of music (and, of course, the cute muscians ;)). i still do something like that, but it feels different -- and it's not so much about music. my friends and i discuss theater a lot (probably too much!), but there's something so beautiful about the complete finiteness and yet open-endedness of a 3-minute song. very definite in what it says, and yet totally open to interpretation.
now, the music itself rouses such emotions and feelings that are so visceral, and yet i can't quite name them. is it nostalgia? am i having little stabs of memory at the stresses i felt back in high school? or is it just a little uncomfortable sometimes listening to old music because it will never quite sound like it did back then, and more importantly, never quite mean to me what it did back then?
Gita wrote:
"or is it just a little uncomfortable sometimes listening to old music because it will never quite sound like it did back then, and more importantly, never quite mean to me what it did back then?"
I hear you -- I went through a phase, like an 8 or 10 year phase where music was not really part of my life (which is hard to believe because it was so central to my life in HS and college). The old songs made me feel strangly uncomfortable, and I couldn't connect with most new music.
But, once I got an ipod, all of that changed. I suddenly got back into music again. I uploaded all of the old tunes to my ipod and now I veg out to them when I run --they allow me to put my head in a space that is now gone. Much of that music let's me temporarily reclaim some of emotional connections I had to the music without the extreme emotional instensity. In my ipod/running world, I don't really concentrate on anything too much, so a quasi-intense musical/emotional experience is just right for me.
Gita wrote:
"or is it just a little uncomfortable sometimes listening to old music because it will never quite sound like it did back then, and more importantly, never quite mean to me what it did back then?"
Well, I can only say that the real terror is when you hear a song that evokes a visceral feeling in you and it's now being used in a tv commercial. I present as evidence Modern English's "I'd Stop the World and Melt with You" which previously only provoked memories of a college love affair. Now, I'm forced to think of cheese and crackers. Criminy!
Cgabor, I'm loving your blog! And today, I posted something on mine that I'm thinking (hoping!) you might enjoy in return: go to http://theanimaldisco.blogspot.com, and take a peek at the entry called 'Young Americans' under the heading 'Mouthing Off'.
Please keep on blogging; you're inspirational ...
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