Turn and face the strange.

I'm a little dazed and confused... but maybe that's just Hunky Dory.

source

That's where I've been these past couple of weeks. I'd like to describe to you what it looks like, feels like, and sounds like... I really would. But just when I think I get it, it changes and slips away, like a dream. But this dream is not mine. I'm floating through the deep waters of someone else's dreams, trying to find my way to the surface. It's not entirely dark, though the light only filters through fleetingly. I swim toward it only to find that I'm swimming toward something on the bottom that is merely reflecting.

The only way I have been able to begin to grasp Bowie's Hunky Dory (and my grasp is precarious at best) has been to shuffle the songs. I am aware that songs are arranged on an album in a specific way, for a specific reason. But in this case, each song is it's own complete whole; one is not dependent on another. It's as if they were written and sung by different people. It's quite hard to believe that the glammy Oh! You Pretty Things is sung by the same person belting out Life on Mars?, and then flouncing along to Fill Your Heart. Throwing the songs out of order each time I listen seems to impose a kind of order onto the experience, giving me a greater sense of comfort, alleviating the disorientation to some degree.

(May I just say that I admit skipping from 1967's David Bowie to 1972's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was a mistake, and is probably the reason why I'm so desperately searching for cohesion among the tracks on 1971's Hunky Dory. I did it wrong. I get it. I take full responsibility.)

Now let me do my best to replay the dream sequence for you. It's disjointed, but there are many wonderful moments, beginning with Life On Mars?.

Not only am I convinced that this is probably the best song ever composed and recorded, but I'm deeply in love with the ethereal creature in the video. You know what? I despise the word video. This is a short art film. Anyway, I can't stop singing it. Loudly. I sing it about eight times a day. That is not an exaggeration. I think my neighbours are probably plotting my death, which is fine with me because if I were to die while singing Life On Mars?, at least I'd meet my end while doing something wonderful and worthwhile, instead of choking to death on a piece of chicken or something.

I hate when Life On Mars? is over. I do enjoy when Eight Line Poem follows:

Tactful cactus by your window

Surveys the prairie of your room

Mobile spins to its collision

Clara puts her head between her paws

They've opened shops down west side

Will all the cacti find a home?

But the key to the city

Is in the sun that pins the branches to the sky

My sister is currently in Tucson, Arizona for a work conference, and today she sent me this photograph of this blatantly "untactful cactus". Look at it, smugly giving the world the finger.

When that's over, I'm very much ready to rock out. Song for Bob Dylan works, but if you've been reading this blog you might have learned that I am impatient and I kind of want to... well... blow my proverbial load RIGHT FUCKING NOW (dear me, where did that come from?!) So I go to Queen Bitch.

This is really the one song on Hunky Dory that hints at what's to come with Ziggy waiting just offstage. According to the Queen Bitch wikipedia page, this song was the inspiration for the Killers' Mr. Brightside. As I'm also a big fan of the Killers (they are brilliant live, by the way), I of course did a lyrical as well as an aural comparison and I do in fact detect a few similarities in structure, lyrics, and theme (a man who has fallen for a lady-of-the-night and is jealous of the time she spends with her johns, even more so when his own friend gets a date with her - at least, that's my interpretation).

When I'm listening to Hunky Dory on shuffle, inevitably things take a nightmarish turn when Andy Warhol begins. I love Warhol's work. I want to love this song. I simply don't. There, I've said it. I have made myself listen to it a number of times, to try and find one element of it that I can enjoy, and it continues to elude me. Sorry. This is thankfully one nightmare from which I can pull myself out. 

If there is one song on this album that is what I would refer to as a "skip-to" it's Changes. I can handle Changes anytime. I don't care what I'm listening to. If I need to skip a song, any song, Changes will always be accepted and enjoyed. Changes is like that part of a dream sequence where you are suddenly someplace familiar and cherished, and there is a large plate of brownies in front of you, and you can eat as many of them as you want because it's a dream after all, and dream brownies don't make you fat. 

This is the wrong album cover. It's wrong. I don't like it when things are wrong. Please just ignore it and listen to the song.

From grandma's brownies to aliens. It made sense in the dream. This is the glory that is Oh! You Pretty Things.

Only one person could write a song this brilliant about aliens coming down to take over Earth. The History Channel should really think about adopting this song as for their main theme and getting some of their credibility back.

After this I like to brain out to the philosophical Quicksand, chill out with the ghostly Bewlay Brothers, and then maybe prance about to the light and fluffy Fill Your Heart. Finally, like any good dream, things sometimes end on a kooky note.

This song is pretty adorable. I read something somewhere on the interwebs that David Bowie was listening to Neil Young when his son was born, and this song was the result. I definitely hear a Neil Young influence in the bass line and the chorus melody, though I'm having trouble pinning it to a specific song. Do you hear it, too? If anyone out there can verify that a Neil Young song inspired Kooks and identify the song I'd love to hear from you.

So. Cacti... prostitutes... aliens... babies... jealousy... disenfranchisement... love... art... Ultimately, the Hunky Dory dream is exactly that... it's a good dream, albeit a strange one, with layers upon layers of surreal images, many very beautiful, floating in a vast sea of ideas and musings. Despite my ongoing bewilderment, it is a dream that I find myself falling into and out of easily, even if it does leave me wondering who exactly this David Bowie creature really is. And so the journey continues...

Ziggy played guitar.

There I was, walking down the street. My heart was racing and I tasted blood on my lips. I had a fleeting sensation of just having taken the life of someone I loved, someone wonderful, but I couldn't remember doing it, or even whom it might be. I ducked into a coffee shop for some hot caffeinated respite from the bitter cold outside. As the barista was making my latte, I popped my earphones in and tapped the album cover for The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.  

I looked up at the cafe's TV screen where CP24's headlines for the day flashed by. And suddenly, the rest of the world faded into oblivion as I read the headline: scientists predicted that the earth was going to end in five years. I felt like I was in a vaccuum.

Then the world came rushing back like a cold tornado wind. I looked around at the room full of people. Fat, skinny, tall, short... so many people. I saw them gazing in the direction of the TV screen on the wall, slackjawed, tears streaming from their eyes. Some were frantically calling loved ones, asking them if they had heard the news, if they believed it was real. I didn't know what to think. My brain hurt a lot.

I dropped my coffee and backed out of the cafe into the street. Things were happening that didn't seem normal.  There was a bizarre brightness coming from the sky that wasn't there before, making me squint on what was only minutes ago a grey, overcast winter day. People were freaking out. Mobs were forming. I made my way to the subway and let the train carry me home, processing all the while.

I awoke dishevelled and disoriented on my livingroom floor. I must have blacked out there. A bruise on my head confirmed it. I was alone and glad to be. Not ready to contact loved ones just yet, I needed more time. I switched my iTunes on. And then... a message of hope!

Ziggy Stardust told me that our salvation wasn't too far away, and all we needed to do was embrace rock and roll again.  Our souls depended on it. It's all a colourful, wonderful, extreme, wicked blur after that. I got carried away by Ziggy's music. I found religion in the form of a Starman in the sky. I haven't even met him and he's kind of blown my mind. Swept up in the hazy cosmic jive, I found myself dancing and twirling and freaking out in a moonage daydream. I drank the proverbial kool-aid, oh my little droogies, and I went to heaven, but I didn't die. If only I knew what was coming...

Others began to join in, and the concert venues filled to the top. Love was everywhere, all around us. I couldn't get enough. Lady Stardust sang his song all night. It was really quite paradise. Then suddenly there was a change in the air... the concert venue so filled with joy and light became dark and hot. Ziggy turned and began to walk off stage. But it's not over... it can't be over! We're not saved yet! Tell me I'm not alone! Don't go! Where are you going? What's happening?! Come back here! Give me your hands, 'cause you're wonderful!

And then, there I was, walking down the street. My heart was racing...

*****

Myself in the Now, here. So... did it really happen like that? Um... does it matter?

This album changed something inside me. I'm feeling things deeply, friends. It's a roller coaster of emotions... highs of love and ecstasy, lows of fear and violence.  And as dark and scary as it gets sometimes, I want it to last forever. Except it can't. Because it ends desperately with a rock 'n' roll suicide, and the blood is on my hands. So all I can do is go back to the beginning and relive the whole experience. Live my life in a Ziggy Stardust forever-loop.

Which is what I've been doing pretty much non-stop since The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars first blasted into my ears. It's really hard to believe I've only spent such a short time with it, because the journey is so intense, so breathtaking, so orgasmic.

Now, this is probably too much information, but it's relevant TMI. It's relevant because while the album didn't come across as too overtly sexual upon my first listen, I subsequently viewed this:

(This video has apparently been taken down. Watch this instead, it's also pretty awesome, and contains clips from the video I had originally posted.)

And then I went to bed and proceeded to have a totally unexpected Ziggy Stardust sex dream. Of course I woke up before it was over. Wham bam thank you ma'am.

This is a far cry from the man who gave us Sell Me A Coat and Love You Till Tuesday.  Making the leap from 1967 David Bowie to 1972 Ziggy Stardust was perhaps an ill-informed choice on my part, but the truth of the matter is, I couldn't wait. Through sheer luck, I seem to have suddenly acquired a David Bowie record collection... and I don't even own a record player. Ziggy is among the albums that have come into my possession, and from the moment I held it in my hands, I became possessed by its magic. So while my initial intention was to get here gradually, all I have to say is, Ziggy made me do it. I have no regrets.

Basically, this album, so accomplished in its concept, so moving in its execution, has become my all-time favourite album by anyone, anywhere, at anytime. If I were to be suddenly transported to a desert island (given the recent temperatures, I can only hope...) and allowed to take one album with me, this would be it. Because seriously, it's pure perfection and begs to be played on repeat.

Selecting favourite tracks from this album is tough, because it's such a coherent whole that it's difficult to take them out of context. But if I had to, I'd go with:

• Five Years
• Soul Love
• Moonage Daydream
• Starman
• Ziggy Stardust
• Suffragette City
• Rock 'n' Roll Suicide

Finally, when I said this album has changed me, I mean it has really lit a fire under my God-given ass. I've dyed my hair with purple and red streaks and I've taken up the ukulele. So... be careful when you give this one a listen, darlings. You never know what may be unleashed.

...While I eat my scones and drink my cup of tea.

In case you haven't already been formally welcomed to 2014, welcome. I hope you've had an excellent holiday. For me, the holidays gave me plenty of time to play in the Bowieverse, and an enjoyable ride it has been!

If you want to know where in the Bowieverse I've been, the title of this post should give you some indication. I've been in David Bowie's England in 1967, it would seem. Because Bowie's self-titled album is decidedly British. And late 60's-ish. And dramatic. Filled with stories of lonely, silly, dreamy people. And a whole lot of fun, really, from start to finish. You might even say "I Dig Everything" on this album (haha, I made a Bowie joke. More on I Dig Everything another day).

Look at that wholesome young man! image source

The first four songs on the album are all smile generators. Take Uncle Arthur, for instance. "Uncle Arthur still reads comics, Uncle Arthur follows Batman". The tale of this lonely, nerdy twill suit-wearing man riding his bike home from work, past the High Street, home to Mother is not exactly a story of Space Oddity proportions, but an amusing one nonetheless. The quaint horned melody even sounds like a cartoon from the 60's.

The lightheartedness continues with Sell Me a Coat. I know this song has become one of my favourites because on Christmas Day, while I was standing in the bitter cold, brushing many inches of snow off the car, I began singing it to myself:

A winter's day, a bitter snowflake on my face
My summer girl takes little backward steps away

Jack Frost took her hand and left me, Jack Frost ain't so cool

Sell me a coat with buttons of silver
Sell me a coat that's red or gold
Sell me a coat with little patch pockets
Sell me a coat 'cause I feel cold

Then things take another turn into Quaintsville-Avec-Horns with Rubber Band, the story of a man whose love left him while he was serving in WWI, and then married the leader of the band they used to listen to before the war, much to his chagrin. His despondent cry of "oh!" in the middle of the song and "I hope you break your baton" at the end elicits a giggle out of me nearly every time I listen to it.

My absolute favourite track is number four, Love You Till Tuesday. It's the unashamedly honest love song about a man whose passion burns so bright and so fast that the affair can only last a few days. The best part of this song has to be the verse that goes,

Who's that hiding in the apple tree, clinging to a branch
Don't be afraid it's only me, hoping for a little romance
If you lie beneath my shade, I'll keep you nice and cool

because you can literally hear the smile in his voice, right up until the moment he chuckles. Not to mention it's just super groovy baby, yeah!

There are a few songs on the album that upon first and second listens didn't really do it for me (We are Hungry Men, Little Bombardier, Come and Buy  My Toys) but have been growing on me. Others (Join the Gang, Maid of Bond Street) have that distinctly British flavour to them that makes me daydream of the times I spent wandering around the streets of London.

My third and final favourite song on David Bowie is When I Live My Dream. Stylistically, this track is not like the others... it's reminiscent of a movie musical, potentially starring Ewan McGregor. The line "Tell them I'm a dreaming kind of guy" just kills me and oozes a kind of McGregorness. This is just one of the unexpected impressions this song has left me with.

But the place this song really takes me to is a magical kingdom, much like Bowie describes in the lyrics, where dreams come true, and happiness is ever after. In fact, this song makes me wonder if David Bowie can see the future. Because each time I hear When I Live My Dream, I imagine Bowie as a younger, not-yet-into-kidnapping, Jareth the Goblin King from Labyrinth, singing to his Sarah about the beautiful life they will live together in a magical castle as he slays dragons to protect her. Seriously.

(Not an actual video, just the song. It's better this way, trust me.)

The album finishes on a rather sombre note with Please Mr. Gravedigger  (gee, ya think?). This a capella number with only the sounds of a thunderstorm for accompaniment tells the story of a lonely gravedigger who steals a lock of hair from a girl he buried in the graveyard, and the man who killed her ("very selfish, oh God"). And while it's not a particularly happy story, I find myself moved as Bowie talks to himself between verses and even sneezes a couple of times for dramatic effect. The dark, dramatic quality of this song and the story it tells leaves me wanting to start the album over again, every time.

(Ignore the images on the screen and just close your eyes and listen.)

Coming away from this album, I am enthralled with the Britishness of it, and the lack of pretention that allows Bowie's own character to shine through each little story he tells. He's a comedian, a dreamer, a Londoner, a dramatist, an observer, a lover, and a child at heart (I didn't even touch on the album's repeated theme of childhood, oh dear). 

I've had a lot of fun haunting old London town, traipsing down closes and alleys, looking for a coat to keep warm while I search for a magical castle to call home with a youthful and unjaded Jareth. Do I have to come home so soon?