In the first 10 minutes alone, you get the terror of life in a dystopian dictatorship teetering on the brink of apocalypse; a feral gang of vaguely homoerotic juvenile delinquents smashing things up; the numbing isolation of stardom and the suggestion that stars themselves may actually be some kind of alien lifeforms "soaking up our primitive world". The mutual respect between Bowie and Scott Walker is well-documented — an effusive 50th birthday tribute from the elusive former Scott Engel famously reduced Bowie to tears live on Radio 1 — and it's Walker's latterday work that much of The Next Day resembles, at least in that the lyrics are so dense and allusive you occasionally feel in need of a set of York Notes to get through them.
The present writer spent an alternately illuminating and rather trying few hours attempting to unpick the lyrics of I'd Rather Be High.
Perhaps the mention of "Clare and Lady Manners" drinking and gossiping about politics during wartime was a reference to The Coterie , the s' equivalent of the subsequent decade's bright young things — its male membership ultimately decimated in the trenches — in which Lady Diana Manners played a leading role. Or perhaps it was a reference to Officers and Gentlemen , the second novel in Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy, in which a character based on Lady Diana Cooper nee Manners attempts to pull strings for Ivor Clare, a character facing desertion charges.
That seems more likely — amid the subsequent lyrical references to the futility of conflict, there's a mention of Egypt, where Officers and Gentlemen is partially set — in which case, the song's overall message might be summarised as: Waugh — huh! But what does Officers and Gentlemen — or, for that matter, The Coterie — have to do with the opening line's reference to Vladimir Nabokov's life in s and 30s Berlin? Pausing only to wonder whether there's a certain cultural richness here that you just don't find in, say, the oeuvre of the Vaccines, or whether Bowie has earned himself the exalted position where one takes for cultural richness the kind of thing you'd ordinarily dismiss as agonising pretention — and to note that either is deeply impressive — the present writer gave up and decided to just enjoy the music.
This, it has to be said, is a relative doddle. Producer Tony Visconti has suggested that The Next Day is of a piece with 's Lodger and, as on that record, Bowie spends a lot of The Next Day experimenting with his vocal delivery, offering, among other things, a peculiar nasal drone on the title track and a doomy, tortured lowing that recalls Walker — him again — on the closing Heat. The dense web of screaming feedback that ends Where Does the Grass Grow?
That aside, the comparison with Lodger might be pitching it a bit high. It's perhaps the least well-regarded album of original material Bowie released in the 70s, but that tells you more about the astonishing quality of the records that preceded it than it does Lodger itself.
If there are some intriguing musical decisions on The Next Day — the honking baritone sax that gives the feral gang of Dirty Boys a curiously lurching, ungainly gait; the vocal rendering of the Shadows' Apache that constitutes Where Does the Grass Grow? What The Next Day has that perhaps Lodger didn't is something more prosaic.
Whatever else he's been doing, clearly at least some of the last decade has been spent carefully crafting inarguable tunes. I gotta say, the ending of this song remind me of Blur a bit those synth sounds totally sound like a choice of Albarn or Coxon to me.
The bridge as well, so good! I found this song really off-putting the first time I heard it, but it really grew on me. I would agree that his stance here and in other songs is not mere nihilism but something more like righteous anger. Thanks for the tribute to PJ Harvey, btw. Bit late to this but I remembered that PJ did an amazing version of the title track on Marr, with a very bemused Gordon Brown looking on.
May be of interest. I like the mid-section, anyway. The bluesy middle guitar solo is very Stevie Ray Vaughan, and sits oddly between the sub-Fripp bookends. The whole thing feels a bit Pro-Tooled as a result. Mistakes and anomalies were better than polish and too much pondering. Energy was eternal delight, in the Blakean phrase. Pure sexual energy and charm rushes out of early Bowie material often counterpoised nicely against decay and apocalypse , but this later stuff just has a lot of spleen and bile.
The sex-decay formula has tilted. You consolidate your corner, your place in history. Shinily-produced though it is, the record feels out of step with the times, stylistically a bit confused. Like, would Fripp and Stevie Ray Vaughan have been playing on the same song?
It sounds wrong. Then there was a novel about the Suffragettes, which Bowie said he was making endless research notes for. Literary agents avidly pursued this manuscript, but it was never forthcoming. Rust never sleeps, and sometimes I think it would have been better for Bowie to have been more Rotten not Lydon! That said, I was as pleased as everyone else here, and in the wider world, with the surprise that WAWN comprised on that January morning. She seems a veritable one-trick pony in comparison to either them or Bush.
Thanks, once again, for the education and illumination. I know what put me off to begin with. The synths are naff beyond belief, very distracting. It sounds much better on its own. My favourite song from The Next Day, by quite some distance. Ten years ago I tried to like Dry and Rid of Me, but I was force-feeding myself early 90s and, like most of the music from that period, they are now gone from my collection.
Let England Shake is now in my favorite 55 albums or will be in November. The vocal performances on both also excite me. But the arrangements more so in High are utterly bland.
This is my favorite song on TND. Brilliant instrumentals, lyrics, and vocal performance. I absolutely love the guitar on this song which is apparently the work of David Torn and have found myself revisiting this song as often as I do earlier Bowie classics.
Blog at WordPress. Pushing Ahead of the Dame David Bowie, song by song. Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading Phil Obbard says:. July 16, at am. Sky-Possessing Spider says:. July 16, at pm.
Patrick says:. Anonymous says:. Mike says:. Galdo says:. ERayLankester says:. Chris says:. July 18, at pm. David says:. Dave L says:. Michael says:. July 17, at am. Mr Tagomi says:. King of Oblivion says:. They know me at Madd It sounds like this is, at least on the surface, about deaths in World War 2, although there can be multiple implied meanings with some songs.
Under every video of Bowie's songs I watch I read comments about how it's the best song, well after all it's true all his songs are best songs. This song begins and ends with "Boys Keep Swinging" and the instrumental part of "Moonage Daydream" is in the middle. That's because he was the chameleon. This album always resemble me of the aladdin sane-diamond dogs era, not for its sound, obviously, but for the creative ways bowie uses in his songs and lyrics. I feel like he's more comfortable, using vocal resources like the "la la la's" and other similars that enrich the songs, like he used to do in the previous albums when he were young, and highly versatile on the 70's.
This album is so nice, nostalgic and serious at its best, but emotionally satisfying. Thanks you for uploading it. Before he died he wanted to tell all he knew about the human ritualist sacrifices made by occult elites for instances young top models sacrificed or young prostitutes or even very young teens etc horrific things but nobody seem to understand I've been a fan for 45 years and I studied so much his texts for years ans years , I m almost certain this is the meaning of this song.
Its not the only one, " love club" by lorde is the same theme. Nobody understood neither. The girls wear sandals made in Hungary. Ann White I love all the Bowie bleak sad songs, but this one is so sad it almost killed me! Froglegs 70 You'll note that Jerry Lordan gets a writing credit on the song The day Bowie died before i heared the terrible news in the evening this song had been stuck in my head the whole day When I heard this I knew that bowie really was back. What a man. There will never be the like again.
Best song my opinion. What a story. The short jam around Tight finish. Great track from The Next Day after 10 years just Bowie can comes back!!!! Oh, I'm sorry about your mom. Really, I am. Well, since we both have pretty fair statements we're shooting back and forth at this point, and this is just another pointless youtube comments argument, we seem to be at an impasse.
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