[MUSIC] David Bowie, "Jump They Say"
Aug. 22nd, 2005 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldOf late, I've been listening to the two-disc mix CD of David Bowie that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
talktooloose burned for me last week. I own most of the songs on the two discs in one form or another, but that doesn't matter terribly. The ethos of the mix CD doesn't seem to be so much about providing songs as it is about ordering songs, giving them some structure relative to each other, sequencing them. "Beauty and the Beast," "Heroes?" and "Fantastic Voyage"? "Fashion," "China Girl," and "Jump They Say"? It works.
"Jump They Say", as it happens, is one of the Bowie songs on this mix CD that I didn't own beforehand. It occupies an interesting position in Bowie's career. After reaching his alleged artistic nadir with the group Tin Machine, Bowie returned to his solo career with 1993's Black Tie, White Noise. The album seems to have been received ambivalently, as (after the Rough Guide to Rock Music) a pale echo of his 70s glories, perhaps unfairly. In retrospect, Black Tie, White Noise might more fairly be placed at the beginning of a renaissance that took off with 1995's Outside to the recent Reality. It might: I still have to listen to the album. For the time being, I just have "Jump They Say."
I caught a snippet of the video on MuchMusic once almost a decade ago, Bowie on top of a skyscraper, dressed in a business suit and buffetted by the wind, someone with a Super-8 camera filming him as he hung on. I thought thatthe guitar was more Reeves Gabrels and less Nile Rodgers, but there one goes. The song that I hear right now, coming out of my computer's speakers,, anchored by Bowie's saxophone and his typically pathetic vocals and lyrics.
They say hey that's really something
They feel he should get some time
I say he should watch his ass
My friend don't listen to the crowd
They say 'Jump'
Got to believe somebody
Got to believe
I like this sort of defiance. I don't, of course, know for certain whether the defiance is actually in this song or whether I'm projecting onto it, but I truly do like this defiance in his decidedly audible musical package.
talktooloose burned for me last week. I own most of the songs on the two discs in one form or another, but that doesn't matter terribly. The ethos of the mix CD doesn't seem to be so much about providing songs as it is about ordering songs, giving them some structure relative to each other, sequencing them. "Beauty and the Beast," "Heroes?" and "Fantastic Voyage"? "Fashion," "China Girl," and "Jump They Say"? It works."Jump They Say", as it happens, is one of the Bowie songs on this mix CD that I didn't own beforehand. It occupies an interesting position in Bowie's career. After reaching his alleged artistic nadir with the group Tin Machine, Bowie returned to his solo career with 1993's Black Tie, White Noise. The album seems to have been received ambivalently, as (after the Rough Guide to Rock Music) a pale echo of his 70s glories, perhaps unfairly. In retrospect, Black Tie, White Noise might more fairly be placed at the beginning of a renaissance that took off with 1995's Outside to the recent Reality. It might: I still have to listen to the album. For the time being, I just have "Jump They Say."
I caught a snippet of the video on MuchMusic once almost a decade ago, Bowie on top of a skyscraper, dressed in a business suit and buffetted by the wind, someone with a Super-8 camera filming him as he hung on. I thought thatthe guitar was more Reeves Gabrels and less Nile Rodgers, but there one goes. The song that I hear right now, coming out of my computer's speakers,, anchored by Bowie's saxophone and his typically pathetic vocals and lyrics.
They say hey that's really something
They feel he should get some time
I say he should watch his ass
My friend don't listen to the crowd
They say 'Jump'
Got to believe somebody
Got to believe
I like this sort of defiance. I don't, of course, know for certain whether the defiance is actually in this song or whether I'm projecting onto it, but I truly do like this defiance in his decidedly audible musical package.
