Blue jeans I just painted six small blue jeans Blue jeans They come in three shades of blue and they're all right Oh, blue jeans I painted miniature blue jeans
I got a dry brush out I kept my hands steady
Sometimes I squint when (Oh, when I just can't see) Painting these blue jeans (Oh, I'll paint the shirts blue too) Blue jeans frustrate me (Oh, they can frustrate me) Somebody save me (Oh, somebody save me)
One day I'm gonna paint a figure that's just splendid One day Everyone will love how it's rendered Remember everybody has to practice hard Oh, look out Earl, you know you've got time
I I'm glad you can't swim Like our victims Who also can't swim And nothing - nothing will keep you together You can't beat us No never no never Because we are villains Just for all time
I I will be King And you You'll be nothing No nothing Will drive us away We will be villains Just for all time We will be us Just for all time
I I can remember (I remember) Standing By the wall (By the wall) And your guns Shot into our chests (Into our chests) And we kissed And we refused to fall
And the shame Was on neither side Oh we will beat you Forever and ever We'll never be heroes Not for one day
We won't be heroes We won't be heroes We won't be heroes Not for one day
I took a few minutes today to watch this launch and booster landing live, and it was magnificent. Seeing the side boosters land with pinpoint accuracy, right next to each other on their pads in Florida, was like seeing an Amazing Stories cover come to life. And that moment when the SpaceX people crank up David Bowie's "Life on Mars," well, I teared up a little. An astounding accomplishment.
Thanks to Sean, I was able to experience David Bowie live, in a sense; you can read about that in this 2003 post from the early days of this blog. Today I'm doubly thankful to Sean for inviting me along, as David Bowie has, I hope, ascended to a higher plane, for it's nearly impossible to believe that he's merely dead.
While I feel knowledgeable enough to critique film and prose, I consider myself a layman when it comes to music; lacking any education or research into the field, I can only say that I know what I like and I know what moves me. "Heroes" is one of my favourite singles of all time, from any artist. "Blue Jean" takes me back to the painful but thrilling days of my adolescence. "Life on Mars" and "Space Oddity" helped cement my love of the fantastic in all its forms.
There's so much more to Bowie than his singles, of course. But his popular hits resonated with me throughout my life, as I imagine they will do as long as I'm around.
I haven't yet listened to "Lazarus," one of Bowie's last releases. Here's the video; I'm about to watch it for the first time. I imagine it's probably great.
Apropos of nothing, on the way home from work today I considered what might be my single favourite works by my favourite musicians. Here are a few selections:
ABBA: "Waterloo"
A-Ha: "The Sun Always Shines on TV"
Marc Almond: "Tears Run Rings"
Louis Armstrong: "We Have All the Time in the World"
Asia: "Heat of the Moment"
The Association: "Windy"
The B-52s: "Deadbeat Club"
Barenaked Ladies: "I'll Be That Girl"
John Barry: "007 Takes the Lektor"
The Beatles: "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"
Pat Benetar: "Shadows of the Night"
The Box: "Closer Together"
David Bowie: "Heroes"
Sarah Brightman: "Eden"
Kate Bush: "Love and Anger"
Johnny Cash: "Ring of Fire"
Collective Soul: "Gel"
Chemical Brothers: "Galvanize"
Nat 'King' Cole: "Unforgettable"
Alice Cooper: "Hello Hooray"
Crash Test Dummies: "Superman's Song"
Daft Punk: "End of Line"
Bob Dylan: "Lay Lady Lay"
Elastica: "Connection"
Fleetwood Mac: "You Make Loving Fun"
Foreigner: "Say You Will"
The Four Tops: "Standing in the Shadows of Love"
Garbage: "I'm Only Happy When it Rains"
Jerry Goldsmith: "Leaving Drydock"
Lou Gramm: "Midnight Blue"
Amy Grant: "Lead Me On"
George Harrison: "What is Life"
James Horner: "Genesis Countdown"
The Ink Spots: "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire"
Billy Joel: "Downeaster Alexa"
Elton John: "Love Lies Bleeding"
Tom Jones: "Sex Bomb"
Chantal Kreviazuk: "Before You"
Greg Lake: "I Believe in Father Christmas"
John Lennon: "Imagine"
Madonna: "Ray of Light"
Paul McCartney: "Live and Let Die"
Bear McCreary: "The Shape of Things to Come"
Stevie Nicks: "Stand Back"
No Doubt: "Hella Good"
Pet Shop Boys: "Where the Streets Have No Name"
Elvis Presley: "Burning Love"
Queen: "One Vision"
REO Speedwagon: "Roll with the Changes"
Marty Robbins: "Ribbon of Darkness"
The Rolling Stones: "Ruby Tuesday"
Roxy Music: "More Than This"
Lalo Schifrin: "Mission: Impossible"
Spoons: "Nova Heart"
Bruce Springsteen: "Brilliant Disguise"
Ringo Starr: "Photograph"
Strange Advance: "Love Becomes Electric"
Talking Heads: "Once in a Lifetime"
Pete Townshend: "Let My Love Open the Door"
U2: "God Part 2"
Vangelis: "Heaven and Hell"
Wang Chung: "To Live and Die in L.A."
John Williams: "The Big Rescue"
The Who: "Baba O'Reilly"
Yes: "Love Will Find a Way"
Neil Young: "Philadelphia"
While I love music, I've often regretted my almost total ignorance of the art and science that makes it possible. I can't read music, nor do I have most of the vocabulary necessary to even speak intelligently about the subject.
Nonetheless, I feel compelled to throw caution to the wind and ask a question that's plagued me since junior high school: do others experience music in the same way I do?
When I listen to a song, especially in pitch darkness, my mind constructs structures of pulsing light, each piece of the structure corresponding to an element of the music. A song's bass line, for example, might represent itself as a coil of purple light stretching north and south to infinity, compressing and stretching like a spring being pulled in time with the music. Keyboard sounds (again, forgive my lack of proper vocabulary) might appear at right angles to the purple coil, again extending into infinity, perhaps represented as a jagged zigzag of a different colour: green or yellow. Drum impacts might burst like fireworks all around, while lyrics and supporting guitars might create spheres or pyramids that fade in and out of existence.
The effect is most intense with songs that, for lack of a better term, have a lot going on to my untrained ear, like "Heroes," above, or "Love and Anger," below.
It almost sounds as though I'm describing the common visualization effects that have long been seen on home computers, but my experience really isn't like that at all; it's much more vivid and three-dimensional, and there's also what I almost hesitate to call a transcendental feeling going on, a feeling of falling in multiple directions at once, like the music could carry me off somewhere if only I'd release my stubborn hold on conventional reality.
I've never spoken to anyone of this, and there's no pressing reason to do so now except that it's been on my mind for some time. It's quite possible that many people experience music this way and that I simply haven't been around when others speak of it. I'd certainly be very interested in knowing if others go through the same process, or one similar.
My brother and I went to the Silver City Imax last night to see the David Bowie interactive concert. Not only did Bowie and the band put on a great set, but the man was quite charming and funny during the Q&A that followed. It was quite neat; Bowie and a moderator sat in a studio in New York while audience questions were transmitted from Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Sao Paulo, and Rio de Janiero. There were a few technical glitches, including some bizarre audio looping when Paul, the guy in our Edmonton audience chosen to speak to Bowie, asked his question. Bowie looked a little confused, and no wonder - Paul's voice was echoing back and forth, along with the laughter of our audience when the problem became apparent. Trippy. But he was a trooper and answered the question ("Do you enjoy working in the studio more, or performing live?") with candour.
I couldn't help but ruminate on the phenomenon; fifty thousand people from half a dozen countries, linked via technology in mutual appreciation of a talented artist. I felt something close to elation when I considered the possibilities, tempered by the understanding that such gatherings are almost always motivated by a desire for money. I can't fault Bowie for that - I've always respected his talent, and he doesn't seem to be in it for the cash - but it's still somewhat sobering.
And yet, I can just imagine giant town hall meetings, people from North and South coming together to hash out the inequities between rich and poor, formulating plans to take back this planet from the robber barons and the scoundrels.
