Since i haven't posted on here as much as i would've have liked i thought i would post it here.
I love Diamond Dogs.
My favourite section is the 'Sweet thing/Candidate/reprise' suite. It was like a whole story within itself, it was dirty in its atmosphere and bowie's voice was seedy and slightly manic. All about political intrigue and, as far as i can tell, mutation - 'to you think your face looks the same' to me was a reference to fall-out. Then it went off into a strange ice-age theme ... being 12 i just loved it.
For it was back when i was 12 that i got my grubby mitts on my sisters first husband's original gate-fold sleeves of DD and AS. I kind of 'Borrowed' them.
The art work was just wonderful, that big slavering dog that bowie was nonchalantly holding onto. Then of course there was the picture within the gate-fold ... Bowie as Halloween Jack turning into a man/dog hybrid. Loved the dark carmine colour of his hair if i remember rightly.
Then of course there came the music ... being only 12 i had never heard an intro like that before, this spoken word set-up for the album called 'Future Legend' .. it was so atmospheric. It goes like this -
And in the death
As the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare
The shutters lifted in inches in Temperance Building
High on Poacher's Hill
And red mutant eyes gaze down on Hunger City
No more big wheels
Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats
And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes
Coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers
Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love-Me Avenue
Ripping and rewrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now legwarmers
Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald
Any day now
The Year of the Diamond Dogs
WOW - you could feel the howling and the creeping hellishness of the new New York. Bowie never did normal, thank god he cared about his music enough to let his imagination stay at the forefront and not let chart success to rule over him totally.
The guitar riffs were Rolling Stone Inspired, with bowie playing the guitars, though i now wonder what they would've sounded like if Mick Ronson were still playing for him.
Check-out the anniversary two disc edition ? Its brill, it gives a flavour of Bowie's original desire for its sound... which is more musical check-out the different versions of candidate and 1984.
One of the things that us devoted bowie fans have always wanted is for DB is release on DVD the DD tour (Before it became the Philly dogs tour, when he started writing Young Americans) and also to release more of the different versions of DD that's hiding in his vaults.
Also love the story of the mistake at the end of Big Brother when, i think an engineer, accidentally stuck the tape in a loop and Bowie kept it in.
Bowie wanted to write about Orwell's 1984 but Orwell's widow didn't allow it. But also there were a couple of books that Bowie was reading 'Clockwork Orange' being the most famous one, mainly because he talked about it lots. Though i think an American SI-Fi writer Samuel R Delany had released a novel called Dhalgren, which heavily influenced Bowie's lyrics.
Diamond Dogs also has two of Bowie' most underrated songs in 'We are the dead' and 'Rock'n'roll with me.'
Of course it has the best version of 'Rebel Rebel' one of the man's best, the riff that to this day i still believe Keef, which he had come up with. But the lyrics, usually lyrics speak to a generation like say Bowie's 'All the young dudes' which doesn't hold today, mainly because nobody wants to kill off the 60's any more, there's supposedly no need. But with 'Rebel Rebel' i dont think that's true.
Generation after generation can feel it in their lives, after all the opening line 'got your mother in a whirl, she doesn't know if your a boy or a girl' is not only sheer utter class, its timeless and universal. Its about that slightly wasted teenage phase that will never go out of fashion.
I think most teens should go through a small phase that embodies the closing lyric below -
You've torn your dress, your face is a mess
You can't get enough, but enough ain't the test
You've got your transmission and your live wire
You got your cue line and a handful of ludes
You wanna be there when they count up the dudes
And I love your dress
You're a juvenile success
Because your face is a mess
So how could they know?
I said, how could they know?
So what you wanna know
Calamity's child, chi-chile, chi-chile
Where'd you wanna go?
What can I do for you? Looks like you've been there too
'Cause you've torn your dress
And your face is a mess
Ooo, your face is a mess
Ooo, ooo, so how could they know?
Eh, eh, how could they know?
Diamond Dogs ends, with the peoploids doing what they always do, looking for someone else to be their messiah who takes the shape of Some brave Apollo.
All in all its an experience as well as an album of music, it goes through so many different atmosphere's and delights some seedy some romantic but always with a hint of melancholy.
Just a wonderful and strange ride, baby.
