[MUSIC] David Bowie, "Alabama Song"
Sep. 30th, 2010 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonald"David Bowie’s diet in late 1975 consisted of peppers, milk and cocaine," a recent article on his Thin White Duke phase begins. When he recorded Station to Station in 1975, Bowie "was rake thin, obsessed with European electro- pop and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and seeing visions as he stumbled into a Los Angeles studio," also "[s]taying up for days on amphetamines." By the time of his performance below of the Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill 1927 classic "Alabama Song" in 1978, he had thankfully moved beyond that nadir, but not too far beyond.
It's the sort of song that I can really imagine only Bowie performing as a pop single. Wikipedia claims (likely rightly, given the size of Bowie's Internet-using fanbase) that the song was included in (among other works) "Weill's and Brecht's 1930 opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. In the latter, it is performed by the character Jenny and her fellow prostitutes in the first act." Bowie included this song in his 1978 world tour, and released as a single in the United Kingdom in 1980 where it actually reached #23 on the charts. I first heard it as one of the bonus tracks on his fabulous 1980 Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), listening in my bedroom at some point in the late 1990s.
It was a creepy experience. The beat's, well, creepy and shifting and ominous, and the chirping chorus is as offsetting. And the lyrics (originally in English, actually)!
The above isn't that unusual, to be sure. But by the end, it's profoundly, um, unheimlich.
This song--which I like, not least since Bowie does the unheimlich quite well indeed-- has two associations for me.
Firstly, whenever I think of the state of Alabama, this song is the first thing I associate with the name; Nazi war criminals building rockets for the United States come second. This creates a--I don't know if you'd call it a bias, but it certainly makes my perspectives on the state off-kilter. As you can imagine.
Secondly, this song reminds me of why we love David Bowie. Even recovering from his nadir--even at his nadir--he's more than capable of creating and/or discovering and certainly performing songs of a certain eccentricity and a definite mass appeal. I like Bowie's cover of "Alabama Song," I do. And you?
It's the sort of song that I can really imagine only Bowie performing as a pop single. Wikipedia claims (likely rightly, given the size of Bowie's Internet-using fanbase) that the song was included in (among other works) "Weill's and Brecht's 1930 opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. In the latter, it is performed by the character Jenny and her fellow prostitutes in the first act." Bowie included this song in his 1978 world tour, and released as a single in the United Kingdom in 1980 where it actually reached #23 on the charts. I first heard it as one of the bonus tracks on his fabulous 1980 Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), listening in my bedroom at some point in the late 1990s.
It was a creepy experience. The beat's, well, creepy and shifting and ominous, and the chirping chorus is as offsetting. And the lyrics (originally in English, actually)!
Oh show me the way to the next whisky bar
oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why
For we must find the next whisky bar
or if we don't find the next whisky bar
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you
I tell you
I tell you we must die
Oh moon of Alabama it's time to say good bye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have whisky or you know why
The above isn't that unusual, to be sure. But by the end, it's profoundly, um, unheimlich.
Oh show us the way to the next little girl
oh don't ask why, oh don't ask why
For we must find the next little girl
or if we don't find the next little girl
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you
I tell you
I tell you we must die
Oh moon of Alabama it's time to say good bye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have little girl or you know why
Oh moon of Alabama it's time to say "auf wiedersehen"
We've lost our good old mama
And must have little girl or you know why
you know why
you know why
This song--which I like, not least since Bowie does the unheimlich quite well indeed-- has two associations for me.
Firstly, whenever I think of the state of Alabama, this song is the first thing I associate with the name; Nazi war criminals building rockets for the United States come second. This creates a--I don't know if you'd call it a bias, but it certainly makes my perspectives on the state off-kilter. As you can imagine.
Secondly, this song reminds me of why we love David Bowie. Even recovering from his nadir--even at his nadir--he's more than capable of creating and/or discovering and certainly performing songs of a certain eccentricity and a definite mass appeal. I like Bowie's cover of "Alabama Song," I do. And you?
