Tag Archives: david bowie

#1080: David Bowie – Queen Bitch

Leave a reply

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.

#966: David Bowie – Oh! You Pretty Things

1 Reply

It was a sad day when David Bowie died. I remember it well. If you’re into hearing about that experience, I covered it in my post about ‘Life on Mars?’ some time ago. The story’s all there. His passing was something that came out of nowhere, and something of a trigger that set off the strange year that 2016 turned out to be. Bowie was gone, but the music remained, and the most logical thing to do was listen to his music just to feel good and listen to his voice. I most certainly did that. The Hunky Dory album had been in there ever since I got my laptop in 2013. However, ‘Changes’ and ‘Mars’ up to 2016 had been my favorites from that record, and I was sure that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. But Bowie died, and then I came across a 1972 live performance of Bowie singing ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ on the BBC. It was watching that that made it properly set in that the man was gone. Also made me appreciate the song a lot more than I did before.

Well, I think the main thing to take note of is Bowie’s vocals throughout. The track is about a master race of some kind taking over the world, based on the ideals of Nietzche and Aleister Crowley. Quite dark origins. But Bowie turns it into something positive and relatable by basing the lyrics on the kids – the pretty things – of the ’70s who were into these strange new things that parents just weren’t able to understand. And Bowie sings about all of this right from the heart with the most sincerity. That delivery ‘put another log on the fire for me’ in the first verse, that hits the sweet spot. If the whole track had been just Bowie and the piano, I wouldn’t even mind, but it’s a very cathartic moment when the rest of the band enter on the first beat of the chorus. That sense of tension is all released in that burst of energy. And still, Bowie continues to blow the track away with his vocal. Joined along with Mick Ronson on the backing vocals, the chorus is the greatest opportunity for a singalong if ever there was one.

I don’t know what else to tell you, readers. Between the quieter contemplative verses with Bowie and the piano and the rousing choruses where the rest of the band joins in, I can’t find much fault with this song. Makes me wonder why it had to take Bowie’s passing to make me listen to it again. It was right there that whole time. But it’s nothing to work myself up about, I know. Same thing applies to a lot of people in that situation. I do wish I knew how to play the piano though. If I learned it enough, I could wow people by playing the intro/outro to this track. Not a lot of people did it better than Bowie though. What a wonder he was.

#739: David Bowie – Life on Mars?

1 Reply

Ah, 2016. Seems like such a simpler time. It was one of the best years of my life. I turned 21; I was on a hiatus from this blog but was working at a music magazine as an intern; I got to go to Glastonbury for free; I went to the USA on a long trip in the last few months that Obama was still president. It was a great time for me. But all the while that year will always be remembered as the one where everyone you loved in the entertainment industry suddenly started passing away. George Michael. Muhammad Ali. Gene Wilder. Prince. Alan Rickman. Leonard Cohen. Carrie Fisher. Debbie Reynolds, Fisher’s mother, who died the next day. There are many more I could mention. It seemed like every week of every month someone of notable fame was suddenly gone.

And it all started when David Bowie, who had just released his album Blackstar and looked like he was making a musical comeback, passed away from cancer just two days after the record came out. 10 days into January that happened. But it wasn’t until the 11th that the news came out. I was on the way to work on the underground flicking through the socials as you do, and there was a post that more or less said ‘RIP Starman’. That was how I found out. And coincidentally, the track ‘Life on Mars?’ was lined up on shuffle on my phone while I was listening to my music library. No lies. It was a sad day. And I just so happened to be working in Brixton of all places while this was going down. I just wanted to get home from work that evening. Hours later, the route I usually walked down to get to Brixton station was packed with fans paying tribute to him.

So this is ‘Life on Mars?’, and it’s on Bowie’s 1971 album Hunky Dory. It’s very much a classic. I think it’s known that Bowie took the chords of ‘My Way‘ and put his own spin on that track, adding surreal lyrics about a mousey-haired girl and Mickey Mouse turning into a cow. I don’t know what the song’s about, really. Though I think the things he describes in there are basically a way of saying, “Well if all this crazy stuff is happening here, couldn’t it be possible that there’s life on Mars too?” It’s probably much more complex than that. Even if the lyrics are quite strange, there’s no denying the beauty of the music. Rick Wakeman’s piano and Mick Ronson’s string arrangement lift the song to an entirely different level. It’s no surprise that this song is considered to be one of Bowie’s greatest, if not that, one of the greatest songs of all time.

My iPod #175: David Bowie – Changes

1 Reply

“Changes” is one of David Bowie’s most recognisable tunes. It is the opener to his 1971 album “Hunky Dory”.

The first time I heard the song was when it appeared in “Shrek 2”, but it was not in its original form. That version was a cover sung by Butterfly Boucher…. with Mr. Bowie featuring on vocals too.

There is not much I can say about it. I do like it obviously, but I feel as if I cannot go into much depth as to why I do. Mostly because I really listened to Bowie’s original version earlier this year. I will just say it’s the subject matter. Songs about time and aging really get to me for some reason.