I've become
untethered in time. What is time anyway, but something constructed by humans to
measure our collective existence? Whether or not I call this moment the past, which it will be (is now), the present, which
it is (just was), or the future which it was (still is), I'm just here (was, is,
will be).
That's sort
of how I feel about dystopian future stories that were written before I was
born (1984, A Clockwork Orange, Brave New
World, The Chrysalids...). Reading them has always been a surreal,
otherworldly experience in which I feel like I'm observing something in a future
that has already happened.
Largely
inspired by George Orwell's 1984,
with hints of other dystopian future stories woven throughout, Diamond Dogs gives me this same feeling,
catapulting me into a timeless timeline in which I float freely between past,
present, and future, all where history is made-up and the truth exists only in
the little acts of defiance about which only you know.
This
timeless place is described in the album's opening track, Future Legend. The year is 1984. I'm only 9 years old, so I have to
be careful out there in the Hunger City.
My youthful innocence is enmeshed with a sort of memory of the future already lived. I learned about it in my History lessons at school. I make
sense of it as best I can.
In today's History lesson, teacher
told us that the government is listening to our calls, reading our emails, and tracking
our Internet searches. It was foretold to us, but we kept calm and carried on,
and look where that's gotten us. If you listen closely to the music on the
radio, you can hear the blip-blip-blip of those watching over us as they record
our conversations. The music becomes dotty and obscured in places where they listen in.
As families
of the party we have to be careful.
But teacher told us that the proles/peoploids
are free, because they don't care. People like that real cool cat, Hallowe'en Jack. He stole a gold-plated
granny-brooch off my jacket. It made me want to be like him.
Oh, the
dirty, sordid future-past, where prostitution reigns as the best living you can
score as a free person, and the price is only your hope, your soul, your heart.
But you wouldn't have it any other way, would you? If you want it, boys, get it here, thing. 'Cuz hope, boys, is a cheap
thing.
It's weird
that as a 9 year old girl, I know about such things. I don't know them from personal
experience, God no! I know them because they're in my memory, planted there
from my travels through the thing we made up called Time. My family thinks I'm blissfully
unaware of the crumbling society around me. They support the status quo, do
what they have to do to survive and protect me.
I sit atop
the staircase to the basement at my grandmother's house and watch as my uncle's
cover band, The Suspects, rehearses songs for their next show. My uncle is the
drummer and the singer, which is apparently really hard to do. To my 9 year old
self, he's a rock 'n' roll idol and my favourite babysitter. The band doesn't always
let me watch them rehearse - children cramp their style. But today they relent
to my pleas. I'm a good audience - I sing along and clap after every song.
Especially this one. You've got your
transmission and a livewire!
Watching
the Suspects rehearse fills my head with dreams. I go to school, but instead of
paying attention to my lessons, I doodle pictures of rock stars. I start my own
airband with kids from the neighbourhood. We rehearse in the basement, too. I'm
the singer. My band members all play air instruments, but I don't lip sync. I break all
the airband rules. When you rock and roll
with me, there's no one else I'd rather be.
There is a
conversation happening upstairs. My grandmother and grandfather are talking
about things that children shouldn't hear. I don't understand, but 30 years
later, my nightmares make sense of it for me. We are the dead. What did they mean? Who are the thought police, Grandpa? What are fuck-me pumps, Grandma? I never got to
ask. I never saw them again. I went upstairs, and the window was open, and they
were gone.
When it
turned 1984, I watched the ball drop in Times Square on TV, like you, like
everyone, like every year. It was the first time I was ever allowed to ring in
the new year. I was in a strange place though. Not my grandparents' house,
where I lived. Somewhere else, where the kids were allowed to eat cereal that I
wasn't allowed to have. Sugar cereal. Such an important night, and that's what
I remember. Dick Clark and Cap'n Crunch. It scraped the roof of my mouth raw and
I liked it. Beware the savage jaw of
1984.
I never did
care much for Big Brother. The way people talk about him, you'd think he was
God or something. I never did care much for Him either. The only difference
between them is that God's a fictional character, but Big Brother is real.
As I type this,
Big Brother is watching my 9 year old self, noting her rebellious tendencies --
her penchant for not doing her homework, the improper way she wears her school
uniform (shirt untucked, socks rolled down), the earrings she stole from the
shop. She's just a child, but one day, she'll become vanishable. She'll write
her thoughts and memories for others to read and... whose footsteps are those
in the corridor?
*****
Sorry if
the above is a bit fleeting and disjointed, but memories, and free movement
through Time are like that. You sort of never know what's going to pop up. I
like things that way. I like life "on shuffle" in some ways. But my
habit of putting several Bowie albums on shuffle didn't exactly work for Diamond Dogs. In a way, this album dates
itself in terms of its composition; there was a time, before music went
digital, when shuffle didn't exist, and albums were meant to be listened to as
a whole. I mean, I guess you could sit next to the turntable and move the needle
around if you wanted, but why would you?
Diamond
Dog's songs are woven together, bleed into one another, are part of each other.
As a result, this album needs to be listened to as a whole to be fully
appreciated. I hope I haven't done it a disservice by breaking it up into
pieces above to tell the story of where it took me. So without further adieu, here it is in it's full glory.
*****
Post
Script: The above story is obviously fiction, but it's based on some true
things. Like living at my grandparent's house as a child in the early to mid
80's and watching my uncle's band rehearse covers of awesome rock songs in the
basement. During my first listen to Diamond
Dogs, I just about jumped out of my seat on the bus when Rebel Rebel came on because I suddenly
remembered that it was one of the songs my uncle's band used to play, and I
remember watching them rehearse it. Needless to say was a rather joyous
recollection. I just need you to know that really happened, and that it's one
of my all-time favourite childhood music-related memories.
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