Can't say I was ever a DAVID BOWIE fan, to be honest. To me, he summons up four things: The LAUGHING GNOME, SPACE ODDITY, LIFE On MARS, The SNOWMAN intro - oh, make that five - and the bad half of a duet with BING CROSBY. Okay, let's round it off to a half dozen - his 1976 film, The MAN WHO FELL To EARTH contained a couple of JIM REEVES songs in the soundtrack.
Still, even I, philistine that I am, feel a bit sad at his passing, so I can well imagine how devastated his diehard fans feel. Here, in tribute to him, is The KING'S SINGERS version of LIFE ON MARS. They also do a couple of neat BEATLES covers, which I'll hit you with at a future date, you lucky peeps!
Incidentally, don't you think that actor EDDIE REDMAYNE would be perfect for playing Bowie in a movie of his life? He's got that androgynous look down to a tee. What say the rest of you?
I'm not into the hero-worship of celebrities and a lot of the stuff over the last few days has been over the top - Bowie didn't cure cancer, he was a pop singer for f**k's sake but at least he managed to stay enigmatic to the end and never became a self-satisfied, embarrassing old fart with a knighthood from the Establishment like McCartney, Jagger and Elton John.
ReplyDeleteDebated about making a comment, but what the hell. I have been following your blog long enough to know that we have quite different tastes in music - I would and still do consider myself a Bowie fan, especially of his early to late 70s output, much of which I have on vinyl. Fond of that era in general with artists such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, Santana, King Crimson, Can and Kraftwerk, to name a few, on my faves list. But the thing that hit me is that he has been around and such an influence for so long that you think he'll always be there so it was quite a shock to hear that he was no longer with us, keeping his illness to himself unlike many celebrities who would make media milage out of a topic as serious as their terminal condition. Now that he has gone it seems that while he knew he was dying he worked on one last album that I'm sure references his condition, complete with an ironically titled track 'Lazarus'. Mixing his life and art right to the end.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought you hero-worshipped ME, CJ, megastar of the Bloggerverse that I am. Funnily enough, I knocked back my knighthood as well.
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No mention of Deep Purple, PC? You surprise me. Isn't there a rule that when you lose your hair, you have to give up listening to the pop music of your youth. (Unless it was Max Bygraves or Des O'Connor, or someone like that.)
Kid, obviously you are my hero - that goes without saying. But I have to disagree that Bowie was the "bad half" of that duet with Bing Crosby - they are both equally good in my opinion. I was looking at the song on YouTube at Christmas and it's the dialogue before they start singing that's really embarrassing - it was obviously filmed for a Crosby Christmas special (was the show broadcast after Crosby's death ?) and Bowie has to pretend he doesn't know who Bing is because Bing represents old-time music. It makes Bowie look like an airhead who's never heard of any music older than about 15 years or so - the funny thing is that the Bowie/Crosby duet was filmed in 1977 and we are now more distant from Bowie's early stuff than that duet was from White Christmas in 1942. That's what I find a bit ridiculous - the trendy types of the '60s and '70s would have laughed if you'd said you liked listening to music from the 1930's but the Beatles et al are supposedly still relevant despite being 50 years in the past. I read one gushing online comment that said Bowie's music would last till the end of human civilization - but the way things are going the end of human civilization may be a lot sooner than we think :D
ReplyDeleteYup, CJ, the Christmas Special was broadcast after Crosby's death, and I remember watching it the first time it was shown. Even then, I found Bowie's part of the song jarring. Apparently, he didn't want to sing 'Little Drummer Boy', which is why the 'Peace on Earth lyrics were written and given to him. It still doesn't quite work for me, even now. As for human civilization - maybe it's something we should try. (Thanks to Gandhi for the idea for that one.)
ReplyDeleteHi Kid, yep, Deep Purple is in there, just didn't want the list to take up the whole comment as there are many more that I could have rattled off here. Yes I have lost some hair, not all of us that reach a certain age are as fortunate as yourself in retaining it, call it the genetic lottery, or kids worrying it off you, take your pick. Don't know about any rules governing what you should and should not listen to at any age but I intend to play what I like to hear in the privacy of my own headphones for as long as I can still hear it. Bowie did what he did as far as his musical career goes, hopefully people can separate his music from the insane behavior of the media on these occasions in coming out with the crap that they do to fill air time and printed pages.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, Jim Reeves, Bing Crosby, Mel Torme, Nat 'King' Cole, etc., will be a steady part of your musical diet. PC, why have you suddenly turned a funny colour?
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