Ziggy Stardust's lyrics and themes brim with so much preposterous ridiculousness that they must constitute some kind of gleeful in-joke. As in "if you aimed to find a message or a story here then the joke's on you".
Well, I tried to find a point and er, I get it, Ziggy is Christ. The world's about to end. Christ's reign has come.
The album then, chronologically, "kiss(es) the feet of a priest", then a "son give his life to save", "Love descends", and "my God on high is all love,". But Love isn't the only thing descending. Here comes Ziggy telling us that "the church of man, is such a holy place to be" and that "There's a starman waiting in the sky, he'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds".
And right here's where I turned off the lyrics, left Narnia, and began ignoring Bowie's Aslan. This must have been Bowie's intention because right then he started talking to me. "Just listen to the tunes," he mystically beckoned. "They're the real deal." I restarted the disc and ignored the schmaltz. He was right, the song's really are the thing.
But why the Christ-as-a-Spaceman thing? "You see," my imaginary Bowie replied, "I was out of ideas so I copied the theme from Jesus Christ Superstar. It was 1971, that show was the biggest thing in the theatre. People loved its silly plot; they took it as important and deep and filled with a real message. I figured, 'why not', Andrew Lloyd Webber's got nothing on me. I got better tunes."
Of course he did. Most of the melodies rise with rapture and beckon to the masses. Suffragette City, Starman, It Ain't Easy, Lady Stardust, Ziggy Stardust; all perfect tunes, perfect melodies, perfect driving rushes. The other songs though - the thematic bridges, the story advancers - I can't really get into. I blame Andrew Lloyd Webber.
October 25, 2007
I Blame Andrew Lloyd Webber
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2 comments:
whoa. So, then, is Suffragette City speaking to some sort of Mary Magdalene figure?
"Andrew Lloyd Webber's got nothing on me" - in your imagination, did Bowie say that before or after inhaling a enormous line? Because I do think the timing would change the context, don't you think?
Andrew Lloyd Webber does have something on Bowie...Webber looks much more like an orangutan that Bowie does. Cripes, whenever I see Webber talk, I can't stop watching him flap those floppy monkey jowls of his.
Sure, we all have monkey jowls if you think about it, but we don't all look as much like a shaved ape as Webber does.
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