Tag Archives: bitch

#1080: David Bowie – Queen Bitch

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Aha! Surprise “Q” attack. That’s right, I’m going right into the Q section of the list. Why? Just because there’s only three songs that I have to write about, so it made sense to just get them over and done with before really thinking about how to approach the R’s. Will take a break for that though, I’m sure you understand. So let’s get this short selection underway. David Bowie’s ‘Queen Bitch’ kicks things off, the penultimate track from his 1971 album Hunky Dory and a proper rocker too. Mostly made of three chords apart from the change-ups for the campy choruses. It’s usually a good time guaranteed when this comes on.

Similarly to my experience with fellow album track ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’, I don’t think I really paid attention to ‘Queen Bitch’ until after Bowie died and I watched a performance of he and his Spiders from Mars (or did they go by a different name before the whole Ziggy Stardust thing) playing the track on the Old Grey Whistle Test show from the ’70s on YouTube. I may as well go ahead and embed that at the bottom. Bowie oozes coolness with the blue 12-string acoustic guitar, not much singing as he is talking in rhythm during the verses, Mick Ronson’s killing it on the golden Les Paul on the right and then they come together to share the microphone and harmonise for the choruses. It’s a boss “live” take. Live in quotations because I’m sure the only thing that’s live about it are the vocals and nothing else.

The song is a full-on tribute to the Velvet Underground, and in particular the band’s frontman Lou Reed. Everything from the smooth talking vocals to predominant use of three main chords to the lyrical subject matter, all taken out of Reed’s guide to songwriting. Take a song like Underground’s ‘Rock and Roll’ and you have the template for ‘Queen Bitch’ right there. Very sure Reed appreciated the gesture as he and Bowie would become kinda tight, and the latter would end up producing Reed’s Transformer album in 1972. They also sang the track together for Reed’s big 50th birthday party concert in New York City in 1997. I mean, I may as well embed that too. These are two legends with the crowd in the palms of their hands.

#740: Nas ft. AZ – Life’s a Bitch

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Long ago from now, can’t even remember what year it was but I’ll hazard a guess of 2010/2011, I was watching this film called Fish Tank while in bed. Why this was I wasn’t sure. I think I wasn’t sleeping very well, so what do you do when that happens? Turn on the TV, I guess. To put it simply, the film is about a girl who has ambitions but has a not so great life at home and also rocks up into this strange relationship with a man. At the end, she eventually leaves home and, after playing once in an emotional scene near, this song played again over the credits. It struck a chord with me. A bit of a dramatic thing to say. But I got quite invested in the film by the end of it, and the track seemed to sum up its sentiment very well. Plus the instrumental was calming to the ears. It wouldn’t be for another few years that I would listen to Illmatic in full though.

I still prefer ‘Life’s a Bitch’ to a lot of other songs on that album. Maybe because I had already heard it before. But I definitely think it contains one of the best matches of lyrical content with production on there. It opens up with a little introductory skit in which Nas and AZ shoot shit about sorting out the money they’ve earned so far, and once that’s done AZ bursts out the gate with, arguably, one of the greatest verses from a featured artist on a hip-hop song to date. I’m sure that a lot of people probably know his verse more than Nas’ which follows after the song’s hook. It’s just the energy with which he comes in and starts flowing over the beat that’s an instant hit to me.

Both rappers do their thing though. While AZ comes in with the energy, Nas follows on a calmer wave and on a positive note – feeling comfortable with the way life was at that point (he was 20 years of age and feeling good to be alive) while also pondering on the not so good stuff he did in his past. Ultimately, the aim for the two artists is to make as much money as they can and focus on the good times of today because it could all end in a split second. And then after the final hook comes that cornet played by Olu Dara, Nas’ father, that caps it off on a sweet and almost sad note.