David Sanborn’s spectral sax, Carlos Alomar’s seductive yet melancholy guitar and the heavenly background harmonies seemed to rise like smoke from a postcoital cigarette. It was late summer, but it felt more like winter in the sense that it was a period of decay. My girlfriend of almost 13 years and I had broken up, and were moving out of the apartment we’d shared for many years.
Neil Sedaka was right, breaking up is hard to do. Especially when it’s the middle of a beautiful, sunny afternoon, and you’re alone, stuck in a grey fog of depression, beginning the dismal process of cleaning out your belongings from a place you thought of as home. A home you had no desire to leave. Young Americans from David Bowie was playing, the title track providing some vigor to counter this moment, and this summer of rigor mortis.
Next up was “Win,” one of his best, and mentioned at the top. It had always come across as alluring. But the context of the present situation gave it a poignant, end of an era vibe, completely stopping me in my tracks. After it ended, I played it again, suddenly dawning on me that the first words are, “Hey, it ain’t over” from Luther Vandross, Robin Clark and the other background singers. Then there was the chorus, with Bowie purring, “All you’ve got to do is win” like if Scott Walker (not the Governor) were a horny soul singer from Mars reciting a speech by football legend Al Davis. Win what? Didn’t matter. It was the positive thought/spirit that counted, providing a boost to someone who sorely needed one, if just for one day.
Starting over isn’t easy. But the concept of change and beginning again is something David Bowie made a career out of, turned into an art form, and was even the basis of one of his biggest hits. The conventional wisdom is Bowie was a chameleon. But the simple fact is he loved music. And when you get down to it, was just another fanatic like us. It was apparent not just in his art, but in how he was an early champion of so many other talented artists. A short list includes Devo, Television, Eurythmics, TV On The Radio, Arcade Fire and Stevie Ray Vaughan, who most people first heard on 1983’s Let’s Dance. Aside from helping launch his career, younger fans like myself got their initial exposure to the blues through SRV because of Bowie.
He caught on to Bruce Springsteen early as well, recording covers of “Growin’ Up” in 1973, when the original came out and “It’s Hard to Be a Saint In the City” two years later. That was just before Born to Run, when Springsteen still had a cult following.
However, most impressive is even when he was a struggling artist himself in ’66, he helped the Velvet Underground, before their enormously influential debut The Velvet Underground & Nico was released. Bowie’s manager at the time, Kenneth Pitt, gave him the acetate of the record, and Bowie soon became spellbound by Lou Reed’s vision of New York City as a grimy, ashen phantasmagoria. Keep in mind, he was only 19 and had never been there before. During the last gig for his band Buzz, at his insistence, they played “I’m Waiting for the Man.” In a 2003 Vanity Fair article, Bowie stated, “Amusingly, not only was I to cover a Velvets’ song before anyone else in the world, I actually did it before the album came out. Now that’s the essence of Mod.” Actually, that’s the essence of Bowie, showing at the very beginning how ahead of the curve he was. Part of what makes his passing so sad is Bowie was rock’n’roll’s foremost forward-thinker, he could always anticipate the future. Now all that’s left of him is the past.
And what a past it is. The sheer amount of accomplishments and highlights are staggering. One of my favorite Bowie moments is in “Stay,” nasty nocturnal funk from the 1976 masterpiece Station to Station. It’s the verse where he intones, “Heart wrecker, heart wrecker, make me delight,” a nod to “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” from Fiddler on the Roof. In the brilliant 2014 book on ‘80s New Wave music Mad World by Lori Majewski and Jonathan Bernstein, Duran Duran bassist John Taylor talks about “Stay.” He points out how he and drummer Roger Taylor were trying to emulate the tightness of the rhythm section, which consisted of bassist George Murray and drummer Dennis Davis.
To review, we have a beloved musical about an early 20th century Jewish peasant milkman living in a Russian shtetl, somehow connected to a hugely popular and stellar late 20th century (and beyond) handsome British synth-pop band, known for lavish videos with beautiful women, yachts, and exotic locations. Seems like Bowie was quite the matchmaker himself.
Another one of his talents was that no one made loneliness sound quite so grand, particularly on “Life on Mars?” and “Space Oddity.” It was a sound and vision that was equal parts sorrow and triumph. He was lucky and smart enough to have musicians the caliber of guitarists Mick Ronson, Mick Wayne and future Yes keyboard wiz Rick Wakeman help convey that feeling of victory in isolation.
Bowie also had a knack for the exquisite and odd wordless vocal. In “Under Pressure,” while Freddy Mercury is scatting, in the background Bowie is chanting like a Cantor in a ‘50s Technicolor musical. More recently is “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” from his 2013 comeback The Next Day. The main vocal hook is Bowie singing, “Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo,” like an owl imitating Buddy Holly.
Even more peculiar was what a friend of mine refers to as, “the David Bowie whispers and mumbles.” Perhaps the most famous example is “Modern Love,” where Bowie proudly mutters, “I know when to go out/And when to stay in/Get things done.” Then there’s “Ashes to Ashes,” where during the bridge he sings, “I’ve never done good things (I’ve never done good things)/I’ve never done bad things (I’ve never done bad things)/I never did anything out of the blue, woh-o-oh (who-o-oh).” He sings the lyrics in a slightly anguished voice, immediately repeating them in a rushed murmur, making it simultaneously unsettling and amusing. Reiterating the wordless vocal “who-o-oh” adds an extra humorously bizarre touch.
“Ashes to Ashes” was how Bowie started the ‘80s, a decade that’s unimaginable without him. The “Berlin Trilogy” of the late ‘70s had a seismic impact on the synth-pop bands that dominated MTV, as well as the post-punk/alternative/goth bands like Magazine, The Chameleons, Bauhaus, etc. And his early ‘70s “Ziggy Stardust” period effected everyone from Echo and the Bunnymen to Mötley Crüe to John Mellencamp back when he went by “Johnny Cougar,” a name given to him by one-time Bowie manager Tony DeFries.
While his influence was/is godlike, conversely, it was also during this time that he was somewhat underrated. 1984’s “Blue Jean” was not only a captivating pop song, but one of the best videos of that era. The extended version of the clip (a mini-movie called Jazzin’ for Blue Jean) showcases Bowie’s killer comedic chops. He portrays a likeable schnook trying to impress a woman by taking her to a club where “Screaming Lord Byron,” the suave singer also played by Bowie, is performing. There’s a Clark Kent/Superman, Nutty Professor/Buddy Love dynamic to his dual performance. Anyone who loves the original, Ricky Gervais version of The Office will recognize David Brent with Bowie’s “Vic” character.
Better still was “Absolute Beginners,” the theme to Julien Temple’s overlooked 1986 musical of the same name, where Bowie was a sleazy advertising executive courting the protagonist, an aspiring young photographer in 1958 London. The song itself is one of Bowie’s all-time greatest, with old cohort Rick Wakeman once again providing beautifully melancholy piano, and Soft Boys bassist Matthew Seligman, who performs the kind of melodic, emotive lead bass Guns ‘N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan would contribute to “Sweet Child o’ Mine” a year later. And the lines, “If our love song/Could fly over mountains/Could laugh at the ocean/Just like the films,” is set to a majestic, operatic melody Pavarotti would have devoured.
How does the man who brought upon the synth-friendly, MTV ‘80s end that decade? By foreseeing the darker, more guitar-heavy ‘90s, of course, with Tin Machine in 1989. They were a band with his Lust for Life colleagues, the incredible rhythm section Hunt and Tony Sales, and Reeves Gabrels, whose guitar could veer from 4am blues to Robert Fripp in a manic mosh pit.
While once again predicting and shaping the future, Tin Machine’s self-titled debut was also Bowie’s heaviest album since 1970’s The Man Who Sold the World. The connection between those records was Jeff Beck’s extraordinary work in the ‘60s with the Jeff Beck Group and The Yardbirds. The song “Tin Machine” has Hunt Sales annihilating the drum kit like Gene Krupa transforming into the Hulk, with brother Tony swinging on bass. Meanwhile, Gabrels executes a middle-eastern melody that could be Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil attempting the Yardbirds “Over Under Sideways Down.” (Most people had no idea who Soundgarden was in ‘89.) Bowie does his best (late Yardbirds singer) “Keith Relf” voice, one that also appeared on “The Jean Genie” and other ‘70s classics.
It’s a reminder of yet another aspect of his genius, which is he managed to combine two completely dissimilar vocal influences. When you merge the insouciance of Relf with the passionate crooning of ‘60s (again, not the Governor) Scott Walker, you’ve got Bowie.
Tin Machine is thought of as some odd footnote in his oeuvre, but Bowie accomplishes his usual trick of connecting through contrasts. Underneath the volume and fury of “Under the God” is the iconic opening riff to “What’d I Say” by Ray Charles. “Prisoner of Love” evokes the vulnerability and authority of Sinatra singing in the darkness, under a street lamp and (Echo and the Bunnymen’s) “The Killing Moon.”
He could achieve this visually as well, like his appearance on Soul Train in 1975 lip-synching “Golden Years.” Amidst a sea of black faces stands this pale, skinny wraith with orange hair, half-zombie, half-carrot, dancers bathed in dark silhouette grooving behind him.
His most unforgettable appearance might be when he opened The Concert for New York City with a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “America.” It was just him sitting cross-legged with a small keyboard, playing a creepy/innocent merry-go-round melody. He was paying homage to his adopted country and city, which had just been devastated by the tragic events of 9/11, consoling the city that he loved so much. It’s where he would eventually die, having just released a new album and staged an Off-Broadway musical. Leave it to Bowie to exit within a swirl of life, art and creativity, one final contrast.
He joins Lennon, Hendrix, Jones, Bolan, Lou and all the madmen who preceded him in death. The man is gone, but what he left behind is eternal.
It ain’t over.
Matt Leinwohl