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, Ziggy and An Analysis of , fictional characters and their worlds in selected lyrics by

Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie

an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

vorgelegt von Bettina TROPPER

am Institut für Anglistik Begutachter: Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr.phil. Hugo Keiper

Graz, 2018

Eidesstattliche Erklärung

Ich erkläre ehrenwörtlich, dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit selbstständig und ohne fremde Hilfe verfasst, andere als die angegebenen Quellen nicht benutzt und die den Quellen wörtlich oder inhaltlich entnommenen Stellen als solche kenntlich gemacht habe. Die Arbeit wurde bisher in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form keiner anderen inländischen oder ausländischen Prüfungsbehörde vorgelegt.

Graz, Juni 2018 ………………… Bettina Tropper

Danke an meine Eltern, Gerlinde und Harald, die mich in meinem Leben in jeder Lebenslage mit viel Liebe unterstützt haben. Durch euch habe ich diese Musik kennengelernt, die mich dazu inspiriert hat, diese Arbeit zu schreiben.

Danke an meinen Freund, Robert, für die jahrelange Unterstützung in meinem Studium und den Optimismus, der mich immer wieder motiviert hat, weiterzumachen.

Danke an meinen Sohn, Jonathan, für das Verständnis, dass viel Zeit der letzten Jahre dem Studium gewidmet war. Du bist der Grund warum ich den Mut hatte weiter zu studieren.

Danke an meine Großeltern, Gabi und Franzi, und Schwiegereltern, Irene und Walter, für die großartige Hilfe und Unterstützung. Ohne euch hätte ich die Möglichkeit, Kurse an der Uni zu absolvieren, nicht gehabt.

Danke an meine Kommilitonen, Bettina, Nadine, Johannes und Phillip, für die traumhafte und intensive Zeit, die wir zusammen verbracht haben.

Danke an meine Freundinnen, Lisa, Julia und Anna (meinem study buddy), für die Motivation und das stundenlange Lernen, das mich immens weitergebracht hat.

Ein besonderer Dank gilt meinem Betreuer, Herrn Hugo Keiper, für die guten Ratschläge und die Geduld die mir entgegengebracht wurde. Ihre Zuversicht und außerordentliche Unterstützung hat mir das Schreiben wesentlich leichter gemacht.

Table of contents

1. Introduction/Personal Preface ...... 6

2. Outer space ...... 8 2.1 David Bowie’s obsession with outer space ...... 8 2.2 Outer space and Bowie’s ...... 8

3. Major Tom ...... 11 3.1 Who is Major Tom? ...... 11 3.2 “” ...... 12 3.2.1 background ...... 12 3.2.2 “Ground control to Major Tom” ...... 16 3.3. “Ashes to Ashes” ...... 22 3.3.1 A sequel to “Space Oddity” ...... 22 3.3.2 , releases and prizes ...... 22 3.3.3 “We know Major Tom’s a junkie” ...... 24

4. Ziggy Stardust ...... 26 4.1 Bowie’s first trip to America ...... 26 4.2 The birth, life and death of Ziggy Stardust ...... 27 4.3 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and ...... 30 4.4 “Ziggy played guitar” ...... 36 4.5 “There’s a starman waiting in the sky” ...... 40

5. or “Ziggy goes to America” ...... 43 5.1 Who is Aladdin Sane? ...... 43 5.2 “Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)” ...... 44 5.2.1 Song background ...... 44 5.2.2 “Who will love Aladdin Sane” ...... 45

6. Halloween Jack ...... 48 6.1 Who is Halloween Jack? ...... 48 6.2 “” ...... 48 6.2.1 Song background ...... 48 6.2.2 “They call them the Diamond Dogs” ...... 49

7. The Thin White Duke ...... 55 7.1. ...... 55 7.2 Who is the Thin White Duke? ...... 56 7.3 “” ...... 57 7.3.1 Song background ...... 57 7.3.2 “The Return of the Thin White Duke” ...... 58

8. Conclusion ...... 64

9. Bibliography ...... 66

10. Appendix: Lyrics ...... 74

1. Introduction/Personal Preface “I was not a natural performer. I didn’t feel at ease on stage, but I felt really comfortable going on stage as somebody else [..]” (David Bowie, “”, 2012, online)

If there is one word to describe David Bowie, it would definitely be “performer”, rather than singer, or actor. David Bowie was a natural talent at performing on stage. Hence, he thrilled his audience after concert. His changing identities made it nearly impossible for his audience to keep track. In one concert, he dressed up as Ziggy Stardust, but preferred to be Aladdin Sane during the next one. His ideas for embodying different characters on stage shaped his lyrics enormously, and made Bowie one of the most outstanding musicians of our time.

David Bowie was born as David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947 in Bromley, . He was the child of Margret Mary Burns (known as Peggy) and Haywood Stenton Jones (known as John). His half-brother, Terry, introduced him to different kinds of music, and soon Bowie felt the overwhelming urge to become a musician. Although many of his early songs did not chart, he did not give up, and finally landed a hit with the song “Space Oddity”. The song introduces the listener to Bowie’s first fictional character, Major Tom, who blasts off into space. However, the astronaut was just one of his numerous characters. Not only did David Bowie invent several fictional characters, he also created worlds for them to live in; fictional and non-fictional. His favorite fictional world was indeed outer space, where Major Tom resides. His other invented character, Halloween Jack, lives in the fictional Hunger City.

The aim of this thesis is to take a very close look at selected songs written by David Bowie and analyze them, in terms of the fictional characters living in their different surroundings. I delve deep into his life to find explanations for writing his songs by breaking down the lyrics. He wrote all the songs that are analyzed in this thesis by himself. Therefore, it is possible to find out about his state of mind, at the time he wrote them. Since I refer back to Bowie’s life throughout the whole thesis, no biography is provided at the beginning of the it. In order to keep the focus on meaning of the lyrics, no explanations about lyrical devices are given. Thus, in order to find out more about them, the readers are referred to Hugo Keiper’s “The Windmills of Your Mind: Notes Towards an Aesthetic of the Pop Song” or to The Poetry Toolkit: the Essential Guide to Studying Poetry by Rhian Williams.

All five chapters revolve around a different fictional character. Since Ziggy Stardust plays a role in most of the songs on the The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, a short explanation of each song is provided. Due to the fact that Ziggy Stardust is Bowie’s most famous character, it is the longest chapter of my thesis. After Ziggy’s retirement, the focus lies on Aladdin Sane or ‘Ziggy in America’. The song, “Aladdin Sane”, is shortly discussed as well as its pun “A lad insane”. Furthermore, the lyrics of the song “Diamond Dogs” are interpreted in terms of his fictional character Halloween Jack. He lives in Hunger City and rules over a street gang called the Diamond Dogs. Bowie’s last , the Thin White Duke, is explained, and Bowie’s longest studio track, “Station To Station”, is analyzed.

Bowie was really special compared to other singers. , the lyrics of his songs are sometimes really hard to interpret, unless you know what was going on in his life when he created them. For this reason, I have added biographical facts when they were essential for the song’s analysis.

Personally, I could not have chosen a better topic for my thesis than David Bowie. His music has accompanied me since I was a little child. My parents used to listen to his music, and I looked at the vinyl covers and moved to the songs. There is no doubt that I was unaware of the lyrics at this age, but I was fascinated by his music. Later, when I was sixteen years old and totally engaged in my schoolwork, I watched the movie “Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo” for the first time. I really liked the music, especially the scene with David Bowie giving a concert. The man, who is definitely ‘the’ chameleon of pop, has stayed in my mind since then and it was a pleasure for me to write my thesis about him.

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2. Outer space

2.1 David Bowie’s obsession with outer space There are various definitions of “outer space” which can be found in different dictionaries; The Merriam Webster Dictionary (2018, online), for example, suggests the definition “space immediately outside the earth’s atmosphere” whereas the Collins Dictionary (2018, online) defines “outer space” as “the area outside the earth’s atmosphere where the other planets and stars are situated”. Undoubtedly, these two definitions describe “outer space” physically. However, according to Rosen (2016, online), David Bowie did not mainly think of “outer space” as a physical construct; he was really obsessed with the idea of extraterrestrial life. He created a UFO magazine and later claimed to have seen battalions of extraterrestrial aircraft, which is revealed in the documentary Bowie: The Man who changed the world by Sloper, Byron and Anderson (2016).

In Bowie: A Biography, Spitz writes that his obsession began when his family got a television. Bowie was introduced to the concept of “outer space” by English TV at an early age (2009: 20- 21). Later, Kubrick’s movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was released in 1969, had a great impact on him and hence encouraged him to use “outer space” throughout his future songwriting. Not only did Bowie write many songs about space, he also chose to perform as the androgynous rock star alien Ziggy Stardust. Ziggy was Bowie’s most iconic persona and was closely associated with Bowie himself (cf. Wide 2016: letter Z).

2.2 Outer space and Bowie’s songs David Bowie’s fascination with “outer space” encouraged him to write many other songs about space (cf. Rosen 2016, online). The first song was “Space Oddity”, which tells the story of an astronaut called Major Tom who blasts off into space. This song was followed by “Life on Mars” whose content Bowie described as “a sensitive young girl’s reaction to the media” (cf. Pegg 2016: 162). 25 years later Bowie explained that he felt empathy with the “girl with the mousy hair” at the time he wrote the song and therefore biographers suggested the girl to be Hermione Farthingale, Bowie’s long-departed lover (cf. Pegg 2016: 162). Nevertheless, Farthingale claimed: “I don’t actually have mousy hair […] Nothing about me fits into any of the words” (cf. Pegg 2016: 162). Therefore, it is left to the listener whether or not they see a connection to Bowie’s previous lover or not. All in all, the lyrics of “Life on Mars” tell the listener about the girl’s isolation and her disappointment about the impossibility to live somewhere else than the earth, for example, as the song indicates, on Mars (cf. Pegg 2016: 162). 8

“I’m the space invader”, David Bowie sings in the song “”, which was released in 1971, the same year as “Life on Mars”. The song achieved popularity not only for an extraordinary , but also for its lyrics (cf. Pegg 2016: 186). According to McKay, the song is “pure space madness, appearing as it does to tell the story of an act of intergalactic sex with an alligator” (Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide 2015: 28). Moreover, “Moonage daydream” was a track on Bowie’s album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and is one of the songs performed as Ziggy Stardust. On this album we also find the song “Starman”, which tells the story of a man, who lives in the sky and wants children to boogie and feel happy. According to Copetas (1974, online), the idea was that Ziggy Stardust was advised to write about a starman that will come and save the earth, which will lead to Ziggy’s ultimate destruction at the end. There is no need for further explanation at this point because the whole Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust will be elaborated on later, in Chapter 4.

As may be expected, “Starman” was not Bowie’s last space song and there were more “outer space” songs to come. “” was released in 1995 and achieved popularity with the remix of , a long-time fan of Bowie. Tennant had the idea to remix the track with the beat and some slightly changed lines from “Space Oddity” sung by Tennant himself (cf. Pegg 2016: 103-104). As a result, Tennant’s “Ground to Major, bye bye Tom” is the beginning of the second verse and followed by Bowie’s “This chaos is killing me”. The alternation (Tennant, Bowie, Tennant, Bowie etc.) goes on until the next chorus, which is sung by them together. Undoubtedly, the song “Hallo Spaceboy” makes it evident that “Space Oddity” continues to exist with its characters and lyrics in Bowie’s later songs and as a result, Major Tom appears as a fictional character in “Hallo Spaceboy” as well as in “Ashes to Ashes”, a song that is part of the album Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (cf. Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide 2015: 96).

There are two more space songs to mention that were not as well-known as Bowie’s earlier songs “Space Oddity” and “Life on Mars”, namely “Born in a UFO” and “Dancing Out in Space”. The former is a bonus track on the album Extra, which is an extended version of the album The Next Day and also includes a DVD with four music videos (cf. Pegg 2016: 467). The title “Born in a UFO” sounds similar to “Born in the U.S.A” by and Bowie’s version of the chorus “[…] She was born in the UFO / Born in a UFO […]” clearly alludes to Springsteen’s version “[…] I was born in the U.S.A / Born in the U.S.A […]”. The similarity poses the following question: Why did Bowie write a song that is quite similar to one of Springsteen’s greatest hits? According to Jones (2017: 137), Bebe Buell, a

9 model and singer, took Bowie to see a Bruce Springsteen show in which Springsteen was playing the piano and singing songs: “David had heard he was special and gifted and wanted to see him. […] David kept leaning over to me and saying, ‘Can you believe his lyrics?’ and he was just blown away by them” (Jones 2017: 137). Considering all this and also Buell’s statement that Bowie was one of the earliest Springsteen fans possibly answers the previous question (Jones 2017: 137). Taking a look at the lyrics, the song can be read either as a “flying- saucer variant on the celebrated passage in Plato’s Symposium” or as “a night to remember with a lady from space […] The choice is yours” (Pegg 2016: 47). Since Aristophanes defines love in Plato’s Symposium as a reunion with our long-lost halves, the lines, “I was born under a stone / We were born with a single voice / She was born in a UFO” possibly refer to it. Especially the line “We were born with a single voice” tells the listener about two people who are reunited and talk with the same voice. Moreover, “She was born in a UFO” points out that the woman or girl was born in a flying saucer. The speaker was obviously fascinated by her, which is suggested by the line “I was so in love with her lavender vest” (cf. Pegg 2016: 47).

In contrast to “Born in a UFO”, “Dancing Out in Space” is a track on the original album The Next Day. The line “Silent as Georges Rodenbach” may refer to the poetry collection Le Règne du Silence written by Georges Rodenbach, a Belgian novelist, or also to his best-known work Bruges-la-Morte. The latter revolves around a widower who grieves about his wife’s death and becomes obsessed with a Bruges opera dancer who looks similar to his wife (cf. Pegg 2016: 70). Therefore, it is likely that “Dancing Out in Space” is a song “whose narrator idolises a female dancer and makes repeated references to ghosts, dancing and death, begins to feel a little more substantial” (Pegg 2016:70).

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3. Major Tom

3.1 Who is Major Tom? Undoubtedly, David Bowie was ‘the’ chameleon of pop. His different fictional personas made a unique artist of him and made it possible for him to stand out from the masses. Numerous fans loved to dress up as Bowie for his , but his continually changing outfits made it nearly impossible for his fans to keep track, because he was always one step ahead. Hence, while his fans were still dressing up as Ziggy Stardust, Bowie already wore an eye patch and performed as Aladdin Sane [pun: A Lad Insane]. Undoubtedly, his different eye colors as well as his androgynous physique and pale skin also helped him to gain the audiences’ attention. Bowie claimed that after some time, his screwed-up eye, which was damaged during a fight over a girl with his best friend George Underwood, made him self-conscious (cf. Spitz 2009: 39). Interestingly, the private Bowie was not an extroverted person. According to Spitz (2009: 16), all his childhood and also as an adult Bowie was incredibly shy. “In a 1975 interview with Dinah Shore, for example, he admits, ‘The one thing I didn’t like was being terribly shy. An incredibly shy person. And so I overcompensated.’” (Spitz 2009: 16) Onstage he overcame his shyness and could perform as somebody else, for example as Ziggy Stardust.

Although well-known and very popular, Ziggy Stardust was not Bowie’s first fictional character. According to Oppenheim (2016, online), Major Tom was the first to bring Bowie into the spotlight. He appears in the songs “Space Oddity”, “Ashes to Ashes” and “Hallo Spaceboy”. “In Space Oddity’s immortal title track, the lost cosmonaut Major Tom is introduced and bid adieu in a heart-rending space-age sonic fable.” (Thill 2010, online) There exist many hypotheses about why Bowie chose the name “Major Tom” for his spaceman. The first one is that in 1962, a set of moon mission collecting cards centered on an astronaut called “Captain Tom” and Bowie, who was fifteen back then, was fascinated by the name and simply changed the first name from “Captain” to “Major”. Another suggestion, which according to Pegg (2016: 256) is the more unlikely one, is that Bowie baptized his spaceman after a name he saw on a variety bill posted in years before: Tom Major, father of the future Prime Minister (cf. Pegg 2016: 255-256). It might also be possible that the title is a combination of both suggestions.

Anyway, it does not really matter why David Bowie chose this name for his first fictional character; what counts is that “Major Tom” catapulted him among the stars, and fame was something Bowie had always dreamed of. “David wanted to be a full-time star […]”, Spitz writes in Bowie: A Biography (2009: 47). He discovered his passion for music at an early age 11 when his half-brother Terry introduced him to it. Terry was very happy that his half-brother was becoming a rock ‘n’ roller and played various records to him (cf. Spitz 2009: 33-34). Unfortunately, Terry developed schizophrenia and committed suicide in 1985. Bowie was deeply affected by his death and questioned his own mind and how far he should push himself. Interestingly, science shows that people with schizophrenic relatives tend to have creative professions. In Bowie’s case, this could explain why he was so talented, namely because of the fact that many of his relatives suffered from mental illnesses (cf. Louise 2016, online).

3.2 “Space Oddity” 3.2.1 Song background Obviously, David Bowie had a great talent for writing songs, but “Space Oddity” is undoubtedly one of his masterpieces. The first full studio version was recorded at Morgan Studios, Willesden by 2 February 1969 and it was included in the movie Love You Till Tuesday (cf. Pegg 2016: 256). According to Spitz (2009: 102), the aim of the movie was to show Bowie’s various talents. Kenneth Pitt, who began to manage the 19-year old David Bowie when he was nearly forty, raised the money for the movie himself and developed it together with him. Ideally, the idea behind the movie was to show people the real David Bowie by watching him performing his songs and miming (cf. Spitz 2009: 102). The latter was important, because miming was a huge part of Bowie’s life. In 1967 Bowie met Lindsay Kemp, a controversial dancer, choreographer and movement instructor, who helped him to “connect with his physical vision” (Spitz 2009: 85). Bowie was fascinated by Eastern Art and Kemp told him a lot about Kabuki theater, which was useful for Bowie’s fictional persona Ziggy Stardust.1 Bowie stated: “I began to think about costuming music, creating an alternate version of reality onstage” (Spitz 2009: 88).

Bowie recorded a mimed performance of “Space Oddity” on 25 August 1969 in Holland for a Dutch television show called Doebidoe and also performed the song as a mime on 2 November 1969 in Switzerland for the music show called Hits A-Go-Go (cf. Pegg 2016: 532). Other than his mimed performances, Bowie and John Hutchinson sang “Space Oddity” together live at the Marquee and realized that the audience was fascinated by their dramatic dialogue.2 John Hutchinson, who played with Bowie in the band the Buzz and according to Spitz (2009: 65)

1 Kabuki theater consists principally of dances, but also singing and speaking intervals are part of its performance. Kabuki evolved in the 17th century and was considered as totally disgraceful in its early days. Nowadays it is considered as the most popular Japanese traditional artist drama variation, in which theater and dance are well equally combined. The artists wear flamboyant clothes and expressive make-up (“Kabuki”, 2016, online). 2 The was a music club first located at Oxford Street in London. It opened in 1958 and was known as a cheap and small club. Many bands who were about to reach fame had its early performances in this club (“Marquee Club”, n.d., online). 12 was probably in love with Bowie, sang the part of “ground control”, whereas Bowie answered as Major Tom. To accentuate the lyrics, Bowie played the , a small electronic keyboard device which gave the song’s climax an extraordinary sound (cf. Spitz 2009: 106). Spitz (2009: 107) explains that Bowie not only made use of the Stylophone, but also played the ocarina sometimes, and the audience was impressed by its funny sound, which made Bowie really happy. Later, Bowie signed a deal with , but without John Hutchinson, who had to take care of his family (cf. Spitz 2009: 107). On 2 October 1969, Bowie performed “Space Oddity” at the show , accompanied again by the Stylophone and standing against a black background, which according to Kenneth Pitt was necessary because the audience was often more interested in seeing themselves in the monitors instead of watching the artists (cf. Pegg 2016: 258).

“Space Oddity” is part of the album David Bowie/Space Oddity, which was released as David Bowie in 1969 and later retitled Space Oddity in 1972. The song “Space Oddity” was also released as a single in 1980 and included the songs “Space Oddity” and “”, which was originally written as a German poem by Brecht (cf. Lewis 2015: 14). The album was produced by , a New-York born musician and producer. music, the firm which Bowie was signed by, believed in his talent as a musician but did not know what to do with him. Visconti, who was known for working with weird acts, was their hope to help them figure out what to do with Bowie (cf. Spitz 2009: 83). “Listening to the tracks, Visconti was impressed by the maturity of the teenager’s voice and the humor in his lyrics.” (Spitz 2009: 84) As a result of Visconti’s impression of Bowie, the two started their collaboration.

Interestingly, Visconti regarded “Space Oddity” as “a cheap shot – a gimmick to cash in on the moon landing.” (Pegg 2016: 256) He called “Space Oddity” a topical song, because back then, everything in the media revolved around space and spacemen (cf. Pegg 2016: 256). Due to Visconti’s dislike of the song, “Space Oddity” is the only track on the album which was produced by , who was also the producer of .3 As it turned out, Dudgeon had a good nose for hit songs, because “Space Oddity” was Bowie’s biggest selling single in the . According to Pegg (2016: 255), “Space Oddity” is David Bowie’s most influential, best known and most remarkable song, which was first released in 11 July 1969, the same month and year Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.

3 Gus Dudgeon was the producer of the song “Rocket Man” by Elton John. This song was considered as an “opportunistic rip-off” of Bowie’s “Space Oddity” (cf. Pegg 2016: 258). Years later, Dudgeon claimed that he was not paid two cent of royalties, which had been arranged before. Unfortunately, he and his wife died in a car accident and his accusations were swept away (cf. Pegg 2016: 256). 13

For people it was obvious that the song and the first moon landing were strongly connected, but Bowie’s motivation to write the song actually stemmed from Kubrick’s movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. “It was the sense of isolation that I related to. I was out of my gourd anyway, I was very stoned when I went to see it, several times, and it was really a revelation to me. It got the song flowing” (Pegg 2016: 255). Certainly, there is a connection between the dissonant strings at the end of the song and the music featured in the movie composed by György Ligeti, a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music (who died in 2006). Moreover, Bowie claimed that there is an alignment of the conclusion of the movie and the fate of Major Tom at the end of the song (cf. Pegg 2016: 255). “At the end of the song Major Tom is completely emotionless and expresses no view at all about where he’s at [..] at the end of the song his mind is completely blown - he’s everything then” (Pegg 2016: 255).

Unfortunately, the single flopped completely in the . It was even banned by various radio stations “because of its un-American attitude to the space programme” (Pegg 2016: 257). Moreover, there was one American schoolteacher who even forbade his pupils to listen to the song because of the lyrics, and some radio stations did not fulfill requests concerning “Space Oddity” (cf. Pegg 2016: 257).

However, “Space Oddity” charted in the UK in September and the BBC played the single during the landing. Interestingly, the single was more intended rather as an “antidote to space fever” and Bowie laughed about people’s perception of the song. Bowie explains his intention in “Space Oddity” as follows:

The publicity image of a spaceman at work is of an automaton rather than a human being and my Major Tom is nothing if not a human being. It came from a feeling of sadness about this aspect of the space thing, it has been dehumanized, so I wrote a song farce about it, to try and relate science and human emotion. I suppose it’s an antidote to space fever, really. (Pegg 2016: 255) What becomes clear from this quote is that Bowie was not part of the mainstream. He even wanted to release “Space Oddity” in stereo, which was something nobody did back in those days. As a result, the single remained in mono in Britain and America and was released in stereo in certain territories like the Netherlands and Italy (cf. Pegg 2016: 257). Bowie even recorded an Italian version of the song called: “Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola”. It was made clear to Bowie and Pitt that there is no other way of translating “Space Oddity” into Italian. It was different from the original version and therefore Pitt regarded Bowie’s Italian version as totally ridiculous. Nevertheless, it was released in Italy in 1970. In addition to the Italian version, a French translation was also made, called “Un Homme A Disparu Dans Le Ciel”, which means

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“A Man Has Disappeared In The Sky”, which was sung by Gérard Palaprat in 1971 (cf. Pegg 2016: 257-258).

Not only was “Space Oddity” a template for various translations, but also a favored song to cover. Thus, artists like , The Flying Pickets, Jonathan King, Jessica Lee Morgan and many others chose “Space Oddity” as a cover song. Among all those cover versions there was one Bowie favored, namely the one sung by a 60-voice choir of Canadian children recorded by the Langley Schools Music Project in the late 1970s. This project was then part of Bowie’s 2002 Meltdown programme4 (cf. Pegg 2016: 257-258).

The probably most impressive version of “Space Oddity” was the one of Commander , a Canadian Cosmonaut. While “floating around in his tin can”, Hadfield shot a video of himself performing the song. He played the guitar and sang in outer space whereas the backing music was mixed on Earth by Joe Corcoran, a -born music producer. Hadfield slightly changed the lyrics in order to adapt them to his own situation in space. , a multi-instrumentalist, was proud to play the piano for this version (cf. Pegg 2016: 260). Due to the fact that Bowie did not own the publishing rights for “Space Oddity”, he tried to persuade the song’s publisher to extend the one-year license for Hadfield’s version of the song. Bowie succeeded and Hadfield even uploaded the song on YouTube, where the song achieved more than 32 million views (cf. Pegg 2016: 260).

In addition to the covers mentioned, “Space Oddity” was also part of several TV shows for example, the song appeared in the U.S. sitcom Friends in the episode in which Chandler and Joey are singing the song and it was also sung by Adam Sandler in 2002’s comedy Mr Deeds (cf. Pegg 2016: 259). According to Pegg (2016: 259), “Space Oddity” always stayed Bowie’s favorite live song during the years, featuring in his sets from 1969 to 1971 and also on his Ziggy Stardust, Serious Moonlight, Diamond Dogs and Sound + Vision tours.

The following subchapter deals with the analysis of the song “Space Oddity” with special attention to Bowie’s fictional character Major Tom. As far as the song structure is concerned, I am not going to explain the different song components in order to avoid interference with the flowing text.

4 According to Wikipedia, “Meltdown is an annual festival, held in London, featuring a mix of music, art, performance and film. Meltdown is held in June at Southbank Centre. […] Each year the festival chooses and established music artist or act as director of the event and they pick the performers of their choosing (“Meltdown (festival) n.d., online). 15

3.2.2 “Ground control to Major Tom” intro

Ground Control to Major Tom, Ground Control to Major Tom, Take your protein pills and put your helmet on. Ground Control to Major Tom, Commencing countdown, engines on. Check ignition and may God’s love be with you.

The intro starts with the hook “Ground control to Major Tom”. Unlike numerous other songs where the hook is located in the chorus, David Bowie bundled his hook into the intro and also into three verses. This way, the line stays in the listener’s mind because it is repeated over and over again. Taking a closer look at certain words, “Ground control” is the term for people who are sitting in a mission control center and guiding astronauts and their flights in outer space. Interestingly, according to The Urban Dictionary (online), “Ground Control” is also a slang term used in the drug world, and it means the people who take care of people who are on a trip because of taking drugs such as LSD, magic mushrooms or other hallucinogens. Indeed, this can also be a way of interpreting the song because the lyrics are full of hidden drug references as will be seen throughout the whole analysis.

Anyway, according to Pegg (2016: 255), “Ground Control” might also be a metaphor for motherhood, “a nurturing environment of spiritual comfort and moral certainty”. Taking the relationship of Bowie and his mother into account, this metaphor makes sense considering that he was not very close to her. Bowie said about his childhood: “It wasn’t a happy one. Not that it was brutal but mine were a certain type of British parent: quite cold emotionally and not many hugs. I always craved affection cause of that.” (Spitz 2009: 19) The coldness was something that also noticed when she visited Bowie at home. Gillespie, a longtime friend from the sixties through the mid-seventies, stated: “It was the first time I’d been to a working- class household […] We sat there eating tuna fish sandwiches with the parents, and they had the television on and not much conversation went on.” (Spitz 2009: 62) Therefore, it is legitimate to assume that “Ground Control” can also be read as a metaphor for motherhood.

The line “Ground Control to Major Tom” is an attempt by Ground Control making contact with the astronaut Major Tom, who has just started his space trip. As mentioned before, Bowie was inspired by the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, and there is one scene in particular which had a major impact on him, namely when an astronaut rings his daughter on her birthday. He tells her that he loves her and that she should tell her mother that he telephoned. Then he takes a “stress 16 pill”. Some parts of the scene are referred to in “Space Oddity”, for example the “protein pills”, and later on the line “tell my wife I love her very much she knows”. Some words were changed, but there are clear parallels between the movie and the song.

The following line, “Commencing countdown”, indicates that the counting down from ten to zero has started, which creates suspense as Major Tom is about to blast or lift off into space. In the background of the last five lines of the first verse, the lyrics are accompanied by the countdown, and a soft “lift-off” is whispered:

[10] Ground Control [9] to Major Tom, [8] [7, 6] Commencing [5] countdown, engines on. [4,3,2] Check ignition [1] and may God’s love [lift-off] be with you.

In the earliest demo of “Space Oddity”, which was recorded at Clareville Grove in January 1969, the lyrics were slightly different. Instead of a soft spoken “lift-off” of the later version, an “American-accented blast-off” is spoken. Moreover, the line “I am floating in a most peculiar way” precedes the line “Can I please get back inside now, if I may?” (cf. Pegg 2016: 256). Bowie made those changes because the lyrics were rejected, but there is no clear evidence why. Maybe “God’s love” and “blast off” did not go together well, whereas a softly spoken “lift-off” accentuated the line better. Moreover, the line can be read like a well-wishing message to Major Tom. Hopefully, he will be safe and have no troubles while travelling to outer space, which was unfortunately not always the case in those days; in 1967 for example, Apollo 1, the first manned mission of the U.S Apollo program never made its launch. A cabin fire killed all three crew members, and this is just one example of rockets who could not get off the ground in those years. Maybe this fact also encouraged Bowie to wish Major Tom well in his song.

One big question still remains: What does Got have to do with space exploration? Religion suggests that God is believed to be everywhere and therefore, also, in outer space. People pray when going by plane and believe that God protects the astronauts. verse 1

This is Ground Control to Major Tom, You’ve really made the grade. And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear. Now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare.

The first verse starts with the hook “Ground Control to Major Tom”. The next line indicates that Major Tom has had a successful start and finally arrived in space. “Make the grade” means that Major Tom has lived up to people’s expectations of going on the mission and arriving

17 safely in orbit. The following line, “And the papers want to know whose shirt you wear”, is probably the most famous line of the song. Not only did Bowie personify the papers, the line is also highly controversial because its lacks of transparency. On the one hand it can be seen as a critique of the mass media being only interested in trivial facts and in money, but on the other hand it can mean that now Major Tom is famous and the media want to know everything about him. Still, both suggestions lead to the same conclusion: it is all about money. With this line, Bowie may criticize the media of being just interested in money and not in people. Moreover, according to Songfacts, “[…] ‘whose shirt you wear’ is English slang for ‘what football team are you a fan of?’” (“Space Oddity” n.d., online), which will also coincide with the media’s trivial interests.

Regarding the next line, Major Tom is obviously about to leave the space capsule. Undoubtedly, it was very dangerous for astronauts to walk outside the space capsule, especially in the early years of space explorations. The risk of floating around loosely in space was high and therefore, “Ground Control” says that it would be daring of Major Tom to leave the safe capsule. verse 2

“This is Major Tom to Ground Control, I’m stepping through the door. And I’m floating in a most peculiar way, And the stars look very different today.”

Line 1 of the second verse picks up the hook, but interestingly with a slight but decisive change. Instead of “Ground Control to Major Tom” the speaker sings “This is Major Tom to Ground Control”. The effect is a reversal in fact, because now Major Tom wants to make contact with “Ground Control” instead of vice versa, in order to tell “Ground Control” about his intention to leave the space capsule. Nevertheless, the hook stays “Ground Control to Major Tom”, even if the sentence is turned around later. Finally, the line “I’m stepping through the door” indicates that Major Tom now finally leaves the capsule. What will happen to him now?

The next line, “And I’m floating in a most peculiar way” is again ambiguous. As mentioned earlier, there are some hints in the song that might lead to the conclusion that it could be indeed a song describing a drug trip. “Some have found a drug-fixated subtext in Major Tom’s ‘trip’, suggesting that the countdown, ‘lift-off’ and ‘floating in a most peculiar way’ reflect the process of injecting heroin and waiting for the hit.” (Pegg 2016: 255) Although this explanation seems quite possible, especially when looking at Bowie’s follow-up song “Ashes to ashes”, the line is still open to more than just one interpretation. Before illustrating other ways of interpreting the

18 line, there is a need for a short digression into Bowie’s follow-up song “Ashes to ashes”. Actually, as mentioned before, Major Tom occurs also in “Ashes to ashes”. It becomes clear in a wider context that he will survive his space trip.

[…] Ashes to ashes, to funky We know Major Tom’s a junkie […]

These lines indicate that Major Tom is a junkie, which again coincides with the idea of “Space Oddity” being a song about a drug trip, which is strange considering that Major Tom is an astronaut and should not take any drugs. More detailed information about the song “Ashes to ashes” will be given in next subchapter. To come back to the different possible ways of reading the song, another possibility is that Major Tom has an out-of-body experience and is therefore “floating in a most peculiar way”. Moreover, the most obvious idea is that he is floating because of the loss of gravity which he experiences outside his capsule. As David Bowie broke up with his girlfriend Hermione Farthingale shortly before the recording of the song, the line can also be read in a totally different way, since it can indicate Bowie’s inability to connect with others on an emotional level.

Bowie and Farthingale met at Lindsay Kemp’s dancing school and harmonized well with each other. “It was his first adult relationship, and one that demanded, even in those enlightened, free-loving times, a bit more of a sacrifice or sense of commitment than he was willing to give at his young age […] She certainly inspired the twenty-one-year-old Bowie.” (Spitz 2009: 95) In Bowie’s heartbreaking, early songs full with regret, Farthingale is fondly remembered, as for example in “Life on Mars” or “Space Oddity” as well. Also, reinventing oneself was something both had in common, since Hermione Farthingale was not her real name. According to Spitz (2009: 98), it is possible that she had famous parents who did not want it known that their daughter was a hippie. Therefore, she chose a different name. Her real name still remains unknown.

The last line of the second verse, “And the stars look very different today”, also leaves room for different interpretations since it can be read at least from two different perspectives. The first one is from the view of Bowie that it took him a long time to earn stardom. “Space Oddity” became a hit and he finally made it to the top; as a result, his whole life changed. Maybe this line means that now he has arrived among the celebrities or “stars”, his attitude towards them has changed and he feels like one of them now. From Major Tom’s perspective, the “stars” might not be celebrities, but celestial bodies. There is no doubt that the stars look differently

19 when looking up into the sky from space as opposed to residing on Earth and not be floating around in space. chorus 1 chorus 2

“For here am I sitting in a tin can, “Here am I floating round my tin can, Far above the world. Far above the Moon. Planet Earth is blue, Planet Earth is blue, And there’s nothing I can do. And there’s nothing I can do.”

To begin with, it can be seen that there are slight differences between the first and the second chorus. The reason why both choruses are analyzed here is that is makes better sense to compare them now, instead of looking at the second chorus at the end of the analysis. This way, similarities can be detected and differences can be analyzed. The first chorus’ “floating round” is changed to “sitting in” in the second chorus. Additionally, “Here” from the first chorus is changed into “For here”. Also, the third line underwent a change from “Far above the world” to “Far above the moon”, which indicates that Major Tom is now further away from Earth than he was before. Now Major Tom is “floating around his tin can”. Tin is a soft silver-white metal and “tin can” is usually a container for the distribution of goods (Blechdose). Here “tin can” has a negative connotation because the speaker uses it in order to criticize people who associated astronauts rather with machines than with human beings (cf. Pegg 2016: 255).

The fourth line in both choruses, “Planet Earth is blue”, becomes clear considering that the Earth is also called “the blue planet” for its abundance of water. Since Major Tom is “Far above the world”, planet Earth will be blue when looking at it from space, which Major Tom obviously does. Finally, the fourth line merges into the fifth line “And there’s nothing I can do”, which clearly has a melancholic subtext. Major Tom has resigned because he is completely floating around, sees the Earth, and he begins to repent that he has left at all. Also, the end of Bowie’s relationship with Farthingale may support the state of resignation of Major Tom. From time to time, as in this line, Bowie seems to merge with Major Tom by projecting his feelings into the character and can thus express his feelings through Major Tom’s actions. verse 3

“Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles, I’m feeling very still. And I think my spaceship knows which way to go. Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows.”

The third verse is the only one that does not begin with the hook. Although Major Tom is “past one hundred thousand miles”, which means he is far away from home, he “feels very still”. This 20 may refer to the fact that he does not feel the movement of the space ship, because he is outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Another possible interpretation is that the space ship travels really fast and therefore he does not feel the motion of it. According to Cain (2015, online), a space shuttle needs 28.000 kilometers per hour to remain in orbit. The astronauts cannot feel the speed, because they accelerate towards the Earth and the curvature of the planet falls away from them. It can be compared to driving a car, when you feel the acceleration, but not the constant speed.

The next line, “And I think my spaceship knows which way to go”, supports the notion of passive resignation that was mentioned before. Major Tom does not care anymore where his space ship is going and accepts his fate, namely the impossibility of returning home again. This line makes the listener skeptical about Major Tom’s survival, but as already mentioned before, he will appear again in other songs. Like in Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Hamlet where the hero decides at first to remain passive, Major Tom also decides to let things happen. He then decides to break off contact with “Ground Control” on his own accord, just like Hamlet later chooses to take revenge for the death of his father. One more time Major Tom makes contact with “Ground Control”. He wants “Ground Control” to tell his wife that he loves her very much: “Tell my wife I love her very much / She knows”. Now it is pretty obvious that Major Tom is not able to return to Earth anymore, because otherwise he would be able to tell his wife himself that he loves her. Interestingly, there is the line “I miss the Earth so much I miss my wife” in Elton John’s “Rocket Man”, which can be seen as a parallel to this line in “Space Oddity”. verse 4

Ground Control to Major Tom, Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong. Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you…

Although Major Tom wants to break off contact, “Ground Control” tries to stay in contact with him. However, he cannot be reached anymore, which is indicated by the lines “Ground Control to Major Tom / Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong”. Bowie emphasizes Ground Control’s despair about the lost contact by inserting four repeated lines: “Can you hear me, Major Tom?” The mission is over and was unsuccessful. The only connection to Earth was the radio circuit, which is now dead. The remaining question is, whether the circuit is really dead or if Major Tom just ignores “Ground Control’s” calling. Bowie does not give the listener the solution and leaves the reason open for interpretation. The last line of the third verse merges with the second chorus, which was analyzed before. 21

3.3. “Ashes to Ashes” 3.3.1 A sequel to “Space Oddity” “If ‘Space Oddity’ was in part a metaphor of space travel as celebrity as drug-taking as sensory isolation, then ‘Ashes to Ashes’ represents the pay-off.” (Pegg 2016: 28) Bowie himself called the song an “ode to childhood […] a popular nursery rhyme … about spacemen becoming junkies!” (cf. Pegg 2016: 27). Now, with those quotes, someone might indeed think of “Space Oddity” as a song about taking drugs. The fact is that “Ashes to Ashes” can be read as an autobiographical note about Bowie. According to Spitz (2009: 226), there is a possibility that Bowie took more cocaine in the mid-70s than other pop singers. “Each bump he plugged his nose with, fed into the nostril on the end of an antique knife (his preferred method), was rock ’n’ roll chemotherapy.” (Spitz 2009: 226) Cocaine helped Bowie to overcome his shyness in public, and he was thus able to keep up his Rockstar image. Moreover, Bowie was not only a cocaine addict, he also smoked two packets of Marlboro a day. The combination of smoking and taking cocaine made it easier for him to sing since cocaine deconstructs the vascular tissue in the lungs (cf. Spitz 2009: 27). With the song “Ashes to Ashes”, Bowie is somehow wrapping up the seventies for himself, as can be seen from the numerous drug references in the lyrics (cf. Pegg 2016: 27).

About the song’s origins Bowie claimed that when he wrote about Major Tom, he thought he knew everything about the American dream, and Major Tom blasted off in space. After that, Major Tom was in space and did not even know why he was there, and that is where Bowie left him (cf. Pegg 2016: 27). “Now we’ve found out that he’s under some kind of realization that the whole process that got him up there had decayed, was born out of decay; it has decayed him and he’s in the process of decaying.” (Pegg 2016: 27) Major Tom wants to return to the Earth where the whole adventure started.

3.3.2 Music video, releases and prizes “Ashes to Ashes” was first released as a single in August 1980 before it became part of the album Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). The album was released on 12 September 1980 and produced by David Bowie and Tony Visconti (cf. Robinson 2015: 96). Further, it was Visconti’s and Bowie’s last collaboration for twenty years. Concerning the content, Bowie described the album as “some kind of purge. It was me eradicating the feelings within myself that I was uncomfortable with. You have to accommodate your pasts within your persona. You have to understand why you went through them.” (Pegg 2016: 398) Bowie’s intention of making the album was self-help by confronting his inner demons of the past. Although the

22 album reached number 12 in the charts in America and in Britain even number 1, the singles flopped completely. The song “Ashes to Ashes” reached number 1 in the UK charts, but failed to chart at all in the U.S. Nevertheless, Bowie received numerous prizes for the album, for example he was voted the best male singer of 1980 by the Daily Mirror/BBC Radio Rock and Pop Awards and the music video of “Ashes to Ashes” was voted the best music video of the year (cf. Pegg 2016: 399-400).

The video was shot at Southend Beach and was one of the most expensive videos of its time (cf. Lloyd 2017, online). , the video director, managed to find a process which turned the sky black and thus the video looked like some hallucinogenic dream. Bowie was fascinated by that and wanted to include all the characters from the Blitz club in his video (cf. Jones 2017: 287). The club was a wine bar with lots of images from the Nazi Blitzkrieg, and on Tuesdays, full with Bowie fans. One day, Bowie visited the club and its owner Steve Strange, who he admired a lot, in order to tell him that he wants him to dress up four people to be part of the music video “Ashes to Ashes” (cf. Spitz 2009: 310).

The location for the video was chosen by David Mallet and has remained one of the most popular locations for music videos ever since. “While on location […], Bowie spied an abandoned bulldozer on the beach and its owners were located and the machinery quickly employed. The bulldozer follows Bowie, in Pierrot clown costume, as he leads Strange and his mates, dressed in black ecclesiastical robes, along the shoreline.” (Spitz 2009: 310) Strange also participated in the video and his robe kept catching in the bulldozer. Therefore, he started pulling his arm down while walking in front of the machine, and Bowie used the move later on stage, because he liked it (cf. Pegg 2016: 29). The Pierrot costume is reminiscent of Bowie’s time at Lindsay Kemp’s miming school when he did the show Pierrot in Turquoise. The show was actually autobiographical and it was about an eternal triangle between Pierrot, Columbine and Harlequin. Bowie embodied the role of Cloud, a white clown dressed in a blouse with pink- and-purple spots, who sometimes tricked the unlucky hero. Undoubtedly, there’s a great similarity between the white clown from the show and the Pierrot clown in the “Ashes to Ashes” music video, which Bowie might have established on purpose since the whole album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) is about looking back on Bowie’s past (cf. Pegg 2016: 654). “The trio of characters Bowie enacts in the video’s unsettling, dreamlike juxtapositions – clown, asylum inmate and spaceman – are staples of his work from its earliest days, again fuelling the notion that ‘Ashes To Ashes’ is a comprehensive exorcism of his past.” (Pegg 2016: 28-29)

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3.3.3 “We know Major Tom’s a junkie” verse 1

Do you remember a guy that’s been In such an early song? I’ve heard a rumour from Ground Control, Oh no, don’t say it’s true. They got a message from the Action Man: […]

The first two lines, “Do you remember a guy that’s been / In such an early song?”, as well as the third line, “I’ve heard a rumour from Ground Control”, are clear references to Major Tom, and the listener may come to the conclusion that “Ashes to Ashes” is indeed a sequel to “Space Oddity”. In the subsequent lines, the speaker tells the listener that “Ground Control” has heard of Major Tom, although in “Space Oddity” he is believed dead. Actually, the Action Man was the U.K version of the American G.I. Joe action figure from the sixties and must thus have been familiar to Bowie. Comparing Major Tom to an Action Man seems to evoke a feeling of remembering childhood, when astronauts were seen naively as heroes who could explore space without any limits and troubles. For the older Bowie, it became clear that space explorations were anything but easy, maybe as difficult as to quit taking drugs. chorus

Ashes to ashes, funk to funky, We know Major Tom’s a junkie Strung out in heaven’s high Hitting an all-time low.

Like in “Space Oddity”, the chorus starts with the hook “Ashes to ashes”, but in the latter the hook is also the title of the song. Concerning the song’s title, it was originally entitled: “People are Turning into Gold” and later changed into “Ashes to Ashes” (cf. Pegg 2016: 30). The phrase “Ashes to Ashes, dust to dust” sounds similar to the first line of the chorus and can be found in The Book of Common Prayer, which is the prayer book of the Church of ; it means that we came from dust and return to dust. Bowie simply changed “dust to dust” into “funk to funky”, which may describe the process of taking drugs. Firstly, “funk” may indicate that Bowie felt scared when he started taking drugs, and secondly, “funky” may stand for his weird feeling of being addicted to drugs. Moreover, the popular nursery rhyme or folksong “Ring a Ring o’Rosie” also includes a line “Ashes, Ashes” and since Bowie called his song a nursery rhyme,

24 it is possible that he also considered this playground singing game a useful background to his song “Ashes to Ashes”.

The next line, “We know Major Tom’s a junkie”, again reflects David Bowie’s past since the line depicts Major Tom as a drug-addicted guy. Furthermore, in the 1980s, the fascination with space explorations seemed to slacken, not only because shuttles did not live up to people’s expectations of becoming a more economic way of space exploration, but also because of unrealistic launching schedules, which in 1986 resulted in an explosion that killed seven crew members (cf. Wilford 1998, online). The changed view about space exploration is maybe also one more reason why Bowie decided to let Major Tom return to Earth. As it turns out, that was not such a bad idea considering that Major Tom was “Strung out in heaven’s high”, which also may refer to Bowie being high, because of his drug abuse. The final line of the chorus, “Hitting an all-time low” could be a reference to his album Low, which was released in 1977. Since the album was written of the height of Bowie’s drug addiction, it makes sense to assume such a reference. In addition to that, the word “hitting” may stand for waiting for the “hit” after having taken drugs.

Outro

My mama said to get things done You’d better not mess with Major Tom. [repeated 4 times]

Major Tom does not play an important role in the second verse, but full attention is given to him in the outro, which is repeated four times at the end of the song. The outro “is another of David’s darkling nursery-rhymes, paraphrasing the traditional skipping-game: ‘My mother said, I never should / Play with the gypsies in the wood,’ as paraphrased by Anthony Newley in his 1961 show Stop the World – I Want To Get Off.” (Pegg 2016: 29) According to Spitz (2009: 67), Newley was a singer, actor and dancer whom Bowie had a creative crush on. Paul McCartney stated that, when Bowie played him a demo, he thought that his voice sounded like Newley’s. Bowie himself claimed that he wanted to compete with the Anthony Newleys at the time and covered standards in order to become better (cf. Jones 2017: 30-35). Taking a closer look at the two lines, the outro almost sounds like a warning. Maybe the speaker wants to warn the listener of taking drugs. In order to get things right and having a good life, someone should not mess around and start taking drugs like Bowie himself did.

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4. Ziggy Stardust 4.1 Bowie’s first trip to America Before Bowie’s invention of his Ziggy Stardust in 1972, he made his first trip to America. Bowie’s previous album The Man Who Sold the World had not met the high expectations of Mercury records. They thought that Bowie had reached an impasse in Europe, and a trip across the Atlantic might improve his career, since other stars had already had success with this strategy. Singers such as (T.Rex), Cat Stevens and Elton John also came to fame in America, and Mercury records assumed that a trip to the States might have a similar effect for Bowie. Americans might be fond of him not only because of his uniqueness as a musician, but also for his charisma (cf. Spitz 2009: 148-149).

Although Bowie actually wanted to land in New York or Chicago, his first stop in America was Washington. He arrived there on 27 January 1971 at the Dulles International Airport, because Ron Oberman, a Mercury publicist, stayed in Washington with his parents and happened to be Bowie’s only companion. Bowie’s extraordinary look made people suspicious about his intentions in America and they thus held him on the plane. Wherever they went, Bowie caught people’s attention because they were fascinated by his androgynous appearance (cf. Spitz 2009: 148-149).

America seemed to be the perfect place for Bowie because he was a really shy person and the fact that Americans came straight to him and welcomed him warmly without any hesitation made him act more openly. According to Spitz (2009: 149), Oberman stated: “He was wide eyed. He could not believe he was here. I would say he had the mentality of a tourist. He wanted to see things and meet people.”

New York city was Bowie’s next destination, where he met Paul Nelson, a well-known music writer for the magazine, who was also a self-employed worker at Mercury records. Nelson was important for Bowie’s career as he was the one who arranged interviews and introduced Bowie to numerous famous people (cf. Spitz 2009: 149-150). After Bowie had visited New York and Chicago, Los Angeles was next in line, where he met Officer Rodney Bingenheimer, who was known for his impeccable taste in and was one of the best- known disc jockeys. He had been an assistant of Sonny and the stand-in for Davy Jones, who was the reason why David Bowie changed his name.5

5David Bowie was born as David Robert Jones and changed his name when he realized that “there are too many David Joneses” around. His artist name, David Bowie, derived from the nineteenth-century Texas revolutionary Colonel James Bowie, the name giver of the Bowie knife. David Bowie liked the idea to be named after one of Americas toughest guys (Spitz 2009: 71-72). 26

Not only did Bingenheimer arrange for Bowie to be taken over by Liberty Records after two failed Mercury records, but he also made it possible for him to stay at the house of the Tom Ayres in the Hills. A stay at his house was rated high because anybody who was anybody lived there for a certain amount of time. For Bowie, the trip to America was a full success not only because he made important connections, but it also boosted his creativity in writing songs. Nevertheless, he left Los Angeles the same winter and went back to London in order to create his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust (cf. Spitz 2009: 151-154).

4.2 The birth, life and death of Ziggy Stardust “I wanted to define the architype, a messiah rockstar. That’s all I wanted to do. And I used the trappings of kabuki theatre, mime technique, ahm, fringe New York music like in the references with Velvet Underground […].” That is how Bowie explained Ziggy Stardust in an interview in 1977. Why did Bowie decide to create Ziggy Stardust, his most famous persona? Gilmore (2012, online) gives a conclusive answer to this question. He explains that Bowie, who had played and sung rock ‘n’ roll since 1962, did not get the attention he needed. Hence, he created his alter egos in order to catch the attention that he had missed before. “He saw himself, he said, as an actor; he wanted to use his face and body, his voice and songs to play roles, outlandish ones. Then, in 1971, he realized he could combine it all – music and theater – into one character: Ziggy Stardust […]”. (Gilmore 2012, online) He further states that Ziggy Stardust was an extraterrestrial who came down to Earth in order to save it, but Ziggy was also a being who “found rock & roll; who sang about change and pain, and played the music better than anybody; […] and who had the charisma to fuck anybody he desired, woman or man”. (Gilmore 2012, online)

David Bowie invented his second fictional character during a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles on 13 February 1971. He spent a lot of time in Los Angeles writing songs for his new character (cf. Goddard 2013: 164-168). Back in the UK, by the end of the year 1971, Bowie had everything ready for his first appearance as Ziggy Stardust. He had a name, the band The Spiders from Mars, and went to a hairdresser to get his haircut, which made him look “like an elfish Japanese warrior: spiky on top, thin on the sides and with thin straggles wilting around his shoulders like dead ivy.” (Goddard 2013: 177) In addition to his haircut, he also bought ‘starman clothes’ from a discount shop: some patterned grey-green windcheater and turned-up trousers. “His name was Ziggy Stardust and he was a rock ’n’ roll star from outer space.” (Goddard 2013: 179)

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The new identity was influenced by the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the book The Little Prince (cf. Goddard 2013: 179).6 Moreover, and the Legendary Stardust Cowboy probably made a big contribution to Bowie’s alter ego. The name “Ziggy” is said to be an alteration of Iggy Pop, albeit Bowie claimed that it also derived from the name of a tailor shop he passed going by train. Iggy Pop was Bowie’s favorite singer and the fact that he admired him supports the assumption that Ziggy indeed is derived from the name Iggy Pop. “Stardust” derives from the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, a singer named Carl Odam, who is known for his song “I Took a Trip on a Gemini Space Ship”, released in 1969; the same year as Bowie’s “Space Oddity” (cf. Pegg 2016: 353-354). Certainly, there were more people who influenced Bowie’s new character, for example the fictional Professor Bernard Quatermass. He is the title character of ‘Quatermass’ - a fictional science fiction serial from 1979. According to Goddard (2013: 90), “Professor Bernard Quatermass is head of the British Experimental Rocket Group, who launch three astronauts into space from a base in Australia.” Interestingly, ground control loses contact with the crew and all are lost forever in space, which sounds familiar when referring back at chapter three, in which the astronaut Major Tom was also lost in space and broke up contact with Ground Control (cf. “Ground control to Major Tom”).

Bowie transformed himself into Ziggy Stardust for the first time at his birthday party on 8 January 1972. He put on all his clothes and make-up and finally made his first appearance as his new stage persona (cf. Goddard 2013: 185-186). According to Spitz (2009: 176), nobody has made as huge a transformation as Bowie. There were certainly singers like for example, who sang “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” in the first person, but unlike Bowie’s persona, Jagger’s alter ego disappeared when the recording session was over. Anyway, finalizing the Ziggy persona, Bowie dyed his hair red, which was suggested by his wife Angela Bowie (cf. Spitz 2009: 176-179).7

Before Angela Bowie convinced her husband to dye his hair, he and the Spiders from Mars had to prepare for their first photo-shoot for their cover of the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie had prepared glittery trousers and floral jackets for

6 The Little Prince is a book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and tells “the story of an airman who crashes in the Sahara desert where he meets a wise and charming boy from a distant asteroid. The tale ends with the sad little prince only able to return to his starry home by allowing his body to perish in an act akin to extraterrestrial suicide.” (Goddard 2013: 117) 7 Bowie and Mary Angela Barnett, which was her maiden name, met when she was working as a marketing agent and he was her first marketing case. She even convinced , who was Mercury’s European director and disliked Bowie, to allow Bowie to be signed to the label. “[Reizner] hated me, […] She thought I was great. Ultimately she threatened to leave him if he didn’t sign me. So he signed me.” (Spitz 2009: 119) They finally got married on 19 March 1970.

28 his band members, but his band decided to stay inside due to the cold weather. That is the reason why Bowie is seen alone on the album cover of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie or Ziggy, who still wore his blond hair short, put on a Superman suit, leather platform boots and a guitar strapped around his body. His left leg rested on a metal bin, his hand lay on his knee and finally the picture was taken by Brian Ward, a photographer (cf. Goddard 2013: 188-189). Interestingly, whereas on the previous album, , as well as on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars Bowie still had his blond hair, the finalized version of Ziggy Stardust appeared on the album covers of Aladdin Sane, and Diamond Dogs.

Since Bowie was still dissatisfied with his haircut, Angie Bowie asked Suzi Fussey, a women hairdresser, who worked in a salon on Beckenham High Street, to come over and give her husband the perfect Ziggy Stardust haircut. Bowie made a decision about his haircut by looking at the cover on a magazine: “A rich Warhol soup can red, blazing atop a model wearing a stunning kabuki-inspired Japanese dress by designer Kansai Yamamoto.” (Goddard 2013: 203) The new haircut made Bowie really happy at first but on the next day, he screamed out in desperation. The perfect haircut and its color from the previous day vanished and Bowie was left with pink and flabby hair. In order to fix the mess, Fussey prepared a special mixture, which was called “Red Hot Red”. It certainly lived up to its name because now it seemed like Bowie’s whole head was on fire. Finally, Bowie’s long-awaited dream for the perfect Ziggy Stardust haircut was fulfilled, which made him overjoyed (cf. Goddard 2013: 203). Certainly, looking differently but still good and acceptable was something Bowie always wanted to achieve, hence his hair was very important to him.

If someone had to describe David Bowie’s sexual orientation in one word, it would most certainly be “ambiguous”. As Ziggy Stardust, Bowie declared himself as gay, although he was married to Angela Bowie, who had always been aware of his sexual orientation. Bowie “was an absolute full-on ‘I’m homosexual’”, the singer John Lydon stated. (Jones 2017: 108) He explained further that Bowie was a model for many people, who were afraid to out themselves, because in these days, in which being gay was seen as something negative, outing oneself was a very brave thing to do (cf. Jones 2017: 108).

Before his transformation into Ziggy Stardust, Bowie was involved at the same time with Lindsay Kemp, Mary Finnigan and Calvin Mark Lee, an A&M man for Mercury Records, who was also bisexual. Finnigan, a journalist, stated that she was unaware of him seeing other people next to her (cf. Jones 2017: 46). Wendy Leigh, Bowie’s biographer, stated that Angela and 29

David Bowie had awesome orgies at Oakley Street, where everyone ended up having sex with each other. Considering the orgies in which both of them were involved, it can be said that Angela and David Bowie had an open marriage, even though Angela was sometimes very jealous of Bowie’s other women. Nevertheless, she went along with the (cf. Jones 2017: 179-180).

Bowie’s embodiment of Ziggy Stardust lasted for about a year until Ziggy retired on 3 July 1973. The reason for Ziggy’s retirement is explained by Greene as follows:

David Bowie was burned out by the time his Ziggy Stardust tour hit London’s Hammersmith Odeon on July 3rd, 1973. He’d been touring for a solid year with practically no breaks. During that time he went from the half-forgotten guy who sang “Space Oddity” to an international superstar. His Ziggy Stardust character was a icon, and teenagers all across the world had his poster on their walls. Bowie’s manager, , saw no reason to stop. He had plans to take Ziggy all over the globe in 1974, but Bowie had other plans. (Greene 2012, online)

Another reason was Bowie’s fear of going mad because he realized that he had already reached a critical point in his career, where he was unable to distinguish the fictional character from himself. According to Pegg (2016: 352), at the end of the year 1972 and the beginning of 1973, Ziggy Stardust and David Bowie were “practically indistinguishable from one another.” Bowie was confused and not sure whether he was writing the character or the character was writing him (cf. Gilmore 2012, online). Therefore, Bowie decided that Ziggy Stardust should disappear, and the band chose the most perfect song for it, namely “Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide”, which was played at the end of his tour in Hammersmith, London (cf. Goddard 2013: 292).

4.3 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars Other than the album Space Oddity, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is considered as a concept album: either about a ‘n’ roller, or “an outer space opera featuring an extra-terrestrial god” or even as “an essay on fame and a stunning piece of wish-fulfilment.” (Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide 2015: 28) Major Tom appeared as a character in songs, whereas Ziggy Stardust was embodied by David Bowie, and appeared as a person as well as in his songs. All the tracks on the album deal with Ziggy Stardust and will be discussed shortly in order to give an insight into his life. The songs “Ziggy Stardust” and “Starman” will be analyzed line by line in the next subchapters because they are not only the best-known songs of the album, but also contain essential facts about Bowie’s alter ego.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was Bowie’s first hit album. It was released in June 1972, and although the album contained everything: life, sorrow, sex, love etc., a real hit single was missing. Hence, Bowie knew that he had to come up with an idea. For his new song “Starman”, Bowie took ’s chorus of “Over the Rainbow” from the 30 movie The Wizard of Oz and added pieces of the melody of the Supremes’ song “You Keep Me Hanging On”. Bowie finalized the song with pieces from ’s album Loaded. “Starman” tells the story of Ziggy’s on Earth and of his plans to make “the children boogie”. Bowie needed to replace a track of the album in order to add “Starman” to it. Hence, number four from side one, which was a cover called “Round And Round”, was ditched to provide room for “Starman” (cf. Goddard 2013: 198-199).

Side one of the album includes the tracks “”, “Soul Love”, “Moonage Daydream”, “Starman” and “It Ain’t Easy”. The opening track of the album, “Five Years”, gained a place in rock ‘n’ roll history because of the initial drumbeat. In an interview with the American writer William Burroughs for the Rolling Stone magazine, Bowie stated that the Earth will run out of natural resources in five years, which thus is going to lead to its destruction. Bowie explained further that Ziggy Stardust was a member of a rock ‘n’ roll band whose music had stopped to appeal to the kids because of the lack of electricity. “Ziggy is in a position where all the kids have access to things that they thought they wanted. The older people have lost all touch with reality and the kids are left on their own to plunder anything.” (Pegg 2016: 93) Additionally, Ziggy is going to collect news and sing about them because there is no news anymore. How come? Undoubtedly, Bowie’s statements cause confusion because they do not really make sense, but later in the 1970s, Bowie claimed that the real inspiration to write “Five Years” stemmed from a dream he had about his father. In this dream, the ghost of Bowie’s father warned him of flying and told him that he has only five more years to live, which coincides with Bowie’s idea about setting a five-year time limit for the Earth’s destruction (cf. Copetas 1974, online).

Moreover, Bowie was also inspired by Roger McGough’s poem “At Lunchtime-A Story of Love” which is “a tragicomic tale of the sexual abandon that breaks out on a bus when news arrives that the world will end at lunchtime […]”. (Pegg 2016: 93) The poem included some images Bowie could use for his song, for example the first two lines of the poem, “When the bus stopped suddenly to avoid / damaging a mother and child in the road […]” (Adream 2012, online) may have served as model for the song’s lines “Pushing through the market square, so many mothers sighing / A girl my age went off her head, hit some tiny children / If the black had not pulled her off” (The Little Black Songbook: David Bowie 2011: 82-83). It is possible that Bowie was inspired by the fear of the impending death of mother and child and transferred it into “Starman”. The girl is scared because of reading the news about the Earth’s destruction, and thus started to hit children out of desperation.

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The second track, “Soul Love”, serves as the ideal bridge between the opening track “Five Years” and the following track “Moonage Daydream” because of its delightful sax solo. The song differs in its content from the album’s other songs, and depicts a series of melancholic moments of love. According to McKay (2015: 28), Bowie’s general mood changed with this song, probably because of the birth of his son Zowie in May 1971 (cf. Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide 2015: 28). Hence, someone might make out a new sense of optimism in the lyrics. To involve the rock ‘n’ roll alien notwithstanding, Goddard (2013: 197) suggests the following song description: “A sonnet from a distant star, Ziggy caressing the sweetly sharp divide between romantic and cynical.” Bowie’s conclusion is that “love is not loving”, which might be referring to his relationship with Hermione Farthingale, which he called “an awful experience” after they had broken up (cf. Pegg 2016: 253).

The fade-out of “Soul Love” is followed by the wild guitar cuts of the song “Moonage Daydream”, a song which includes sex with an alligator, a space invader, a mama-papa and a rock ‘n’ roll bitch. “The hotchpotch of opening images recalls some of rock’s American antecedents: ’s ‘See You Later, Alligator’, The Mamas And The Papas, the ‘rock’n’rollin’ bitch’ […]” (Pegg 2016: 187) “Moonage Daydream” is a song whose content was described as total space madness. Still, the producer and the band members and Woody Woodmansey believed this song to be the best track on the album. Additionally, Iggy Pop and the Legendary Stardust Cowboy also influenced the song. Bowie turned Iggy Pop’s “she got a TV eye on me” into “keep your ‘lectic eye on me’”, and the Cowboy’s “I shot my space gun” evolved into “Put your ray gun to my head” (cf. Pegg 2016: 186).

As mentioned before, the fourth track, “Round And Round” was later replaced by Bowie’s “Starman”. The song, which came out as the album’s first single was Bowie’s first hit since “Space Oddity”. It took “Starman” two months to chart after its release on 28 April 1972. Certainly, ’s extraordinary guitar solo gave the song an essential boost. Ronson was a very gifted musician and wrote the string for Bowie’s song “Life on Mars”. He was married to Bowie’s hairdresser Suzy Fussey (Suzy Ronson then) (cf. Spitz 2009: 135). As mentioned earlier, Bowie made a mix out of other songs in order to make “Starman” a commercially successful song. “It’s within a whisker of being a cross-breed of T Rex’s ‘Hot Love’ and ‘Telegram Sam’ […] The ‘la la la’ chorus is straight out of ‘Hot Love’ and the cry of ‘let all the children boogie’ is pure Bolan.” (Pegg 2016: 263) Moreover, Bowie took the

32

Supremes’ “Morse code intro” of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” and placed it before the chorus. Last but not least, he used Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow” as the chorus melody.

The album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars offered different mixes of “Starman”, depending on the country of its release. Hence, the “Morse code” part is lower in the mix on the American than on the British album, and the single outtake in Germany was even shorter. Additionally, there is also a Spanish version of the song, which is called “El Hombre Estrella” (cf. Pegg 2016: 263). Many people, especially teenagers, loved the song because it gave them hope. Spitz (2009: 192) quotes Woodmansey: “’It’s the concept of hope that the song communicates,’ Woodmansey said. ‘That “we are not alone” and “they” contact the kids, not the adults, and kind of say get on with it, “let the children boogie.’” With “they”, Woodmansey probably meant the extraterrestrials, which take up contact with children instead of talking to their parents. However, the perfect interplay between Bowie’s hair, his band, his right clothes and the right audience was very well timed and one of the reasons the song reached hit-status (cf. Spitz 2009: 102).

In an interview for the Rolling Stone magazine, Bowie stated that Ziggy Stardust was encouraged in a dream by the infinites to write about the arrival of a starman and for this reason, Ziggy Stardust writes “Starman”. Bowie worked on a Ziggy musical in 1973, which was a “sci- fi saga about the end of the world, a planet with no electricity and strange ‘black hole jumpers’ from another galaxy called ‘the Infinites’.” (Goddard 2013: 298) These Infinites arrive somewhere in Greenwich Village. One of them resembles Marlon Brando, the famous American actor. However, they are not useful for people on Earth, and entered our universe by accident by black-hole jumping. All they do is to travel from universe to universe (cf. Copetas 1974, online). The last song of the first album side, “It Ain’t Easy” was not written by Bowie but by Ron Davies, an American musician and songwriter, and it is thus not discussed here.

Mick Ronson’s underestimated piano playing opens the second side of the album, whose first track “” was believed to be influenced by Elton John’s music because of its piano- led arrangement (cf. Pegg 2016: 148). However, Marc Bolan was certainly Bowie’s biggest inspiration. Bolan, who was Bowie’s friend and rival, wrote lyrics that did not really make sense. Comparing Bowie to Bolan, Spitz (2009: 53) notes that “Bolan was writing a lot of lyrics that were catchphrases and cute rhymes. They didn’t actually make any sense. […] Whereas Bowie’s songwriting was a lot more coherent.”

Some people believed that Lady Stardust was inspired by Marc Bolan and some words of the lyrics support this assumption, for instance “long black hair” and “makeup on his face”. As a 33 matter of fact, Bolan indeed wore long black hair and makeup and the assumption might thus be correct. Moreover, “Bolan’s face was projected on the backcloth when ‘Lady Stardust’ opened Bowie’s shows at the Rainbow Theatre in August 1972 […]”, which was probably a quite obvious indication of Bolan’s influence on the song. (Pegg 2016: 149) However, Bowie was also influenced by other Americans. His fascination about American youth is reflected in many of his songs in his use of quite a lot of American vocabulary, which will be discussed in the next subchapters (cf. Pegg 2016: 148-149). As far as the content of the song is concerned, “‘Lady Stardust’ is the record’s big gay heart, describing a sexually charged performer who appeals to both men and women.” (Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide 2015: 29) The Lady might thus be Ziggy Stardust until he realized he is the prophet of the Infinites.

“Lady Stardust” follows the song “Star”, which is a song about rock ‘n’ roll ambition and somehow autobiographical because it deals with the struggles between Bowie and his manager Tony Defries. The lines “I could do with the money” and “I’m so wiped out with things as they are” perfectly mirror Bowie’s frustration about Defries’ handling of his money (cf. Spitz 2009: 188). Angela Bowie claimed that her husband supported the entire MainMan company in New York, which means that people lived off his money. According to Spitz (2009: 247), , a photographer, stated that Defries had some contracts that Bowie had to sign, and Defries told the secretary not to worry because Bowie will sign anything. Interestingly, Bowie confirmed Mick Rock’s statement and explained that he had only “eyes on the star prize” but realized later what he had done (cf. Spitz 2009: 246).

“” is the fourth track of the album and its lyrics illustrate the fusion of sexual climax and realization of rock stardom. The lines of the first verse, “She’ll come to the show tonight / Praying to the light machine / She wants my honey not my money […]”, (“Hang on to Yourself” n.d., online) clearly shows that Ziggy Stardust has a female fan with whom he is intimate. In the chorus, Ziggy is advised to hang on to himself because the band has “a good thing going”, and in order to stay successful he needs to stay on the ball (cf. Pegg 2016: 104).

The album’s title track, “Ziggy Stardust”, incorporates one of Bowie’s finest guitar-rock melodies, but the track hardly ever is mentioned for its great guitar . Concerning the content of the song, Goddard (2013: 197) suggests the following explanation: “The expositional ballad of the Starman. A 3-D vision sculpted from Ziggy’s bones, blood and guts.” The song failed to become a hit but became a hit single as a , which was sung by the band Bauhaus. The cover song was recorded at a BBC radio session, and reached number 15 in October 1982 (cf. Pegg 2016: 326). 34

Like “Ziggy Stardust”, the next track, “”, was covered by many artists, for example by , The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Franz Ferdinand as a duet, Alice in Chains, , Big Audio Dynamite, Andy Taylor, LA Guns, ABC and Tony Hadley as a duet, and many more. “Suffragette City” established itself as one of the central tracks of the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The lyrics, and especially the lines “I gotta straighten my face … I can’t take you this time” may either describe the situation of a macho being alone with a girlfriend or a transformation from boyfriend into girlfriend, which coincides with Bowie’s shifting sexuality (cf. Pegg 2016: 271).

In the second verse of the song, the speaker addresses his friend as a “droogie”, a reference to Kubrick’s movie: A Clockwork Orange, the music to which was played at the pre-show on the Ziggy Stardust tour in 1972. Bowie was inspired by the actor Malcolm McDowell as Alex, who was a merciless character and androgynous like Bowie (cf. Pegg 2016: 271). According to Spitz (2009: 179) Kubrick seemed to imply “that in a world where society is criminal, the citizen might as well be a criminal, too. This was basically the debased state of affairs in which Ziggy would breed: suburban drudgery and shockingly violent youth energy.”

“Suffragette City” fades out and “Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide”, the final track of the album, starts with its “quiet, acoustic strum into a lush arrangement, given voice by the largest orchestra of the Ziggy Stardust sessions.” (Pegg 2016: 227) In the Rolling Stone interview with William Burroughs, Bowie explained the song as follows: “Now Ziggy starts to believe in all this himself and thinks himself a prophet of the future starman. […] When the infinites arrive, they take bits of Ziggy to make themselves real because in their original state they are anti-matter and cannot exist on our world. And they tear him to pieces onstage during the song ‘ Suicide’”, which was the end of Ziggy Stardust forever (Copetas 1974, online).

The song ended with Bowie screaming “You’re not alone” at his spectators, and realized that many of them were dressed like him (cf. Spitz 2009: 207). Nicholas Coleridge, a devoted fan, stated that Bowie’s fans believed truly that Ziggy Stardust will continue forever, which, as it turned out, proved to be false. On 3 July 1973 at the Hammersmith Odeon gig, the world collapsed for numerous devoted fans because Bowie announced that it was his last performance. Actually, Bowie meant the last Ziggy Stardust performance but people got it wrong and were totally desperate (cf. Jones 2017: 164). Undoubtedly, Ziggy Stardust was David Bowie’s most famous and best remembered fictional character. According to Light (2016, online), Bowie stated: “I mean, my plastic rock & roller was much more plastic than anybody’s. And that was what was needed at the time.” 35

4.4 “Ziggy played guitar” This subchapter discusses David Bowie’s song “Ziggy Stardust”. The song format is intro – verse 1 – verse 2 – chorus 1 – verse 3 – chorus 2. The second chorus consists of the repeated first chorus and will, therefore, not be specifically discussed. The greeting and the farewell of the intro: “Hey my love / Goodbye love” refer to Ziggy Stardust’s arrival on and disappearance from Earth. verse 1

Now Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly And the Spiders from Mars. He played it left hand but made it too far, Became the special man, then we were Ziggy’s band.

To begin with, it seems as if the song is written from the perspective of Bowie’s band, The Spiders from Mars, who tell the listener about their impressions of their lead singer Ziggy Stardust. At first it seems as if the band members work together in close cooperation, since Ziggy is “jamming good with Weird and Gilly”. The direct reference to Weird and Gilly might point out their importance in the band. The bassist Trevor Bolder, aka Weird, was the last one to join the band. The drummer, Woody Woodmansey aka Gilly, was recommended by Mick Ronson, aka Woody, who played piano, recorder and violin (cf. Goddard 2013: 172-173).

However, it has been proposed that another possibility is that the character of “Gilly” was inspired by an acquaintance from the early 1960s. George Underwood - Bowie’s school mate responsible for his damaged eye – stated that Gilly was a biker who “became a bit of a local hero when he told the headmaster where to go when he tried to force him to shave his sideburns. I was really impressed with Gilly, thought he was great”. (Pegg 2016: 326) The fact that the entire first verse centers on the band supports the notion that Bowie referred to his band member, instead of his acquaintance from school.

The first impression of social harmony that seems to prevail among the band members is more illusion than reality as the lines “But made it too far / Became the special man, then we were Ziggy’s band” indicate. The band points out that Ziggy became too popular and consequently pushed his band colleagues into the background. As a matter of fact, this is a very common phenomenon in the music world. The lead singer of a band is often considered the most important person on stage and functions as its representative. Nevertheless, it is essential for the team spirit to appreciate and praise the musical support of the backing band.

36 verse 2

Ziggy really sang, screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo Like some cat from Japan, Oh he could lick’em by smiling, he could leave’em to hang, He came on so loaded man, well hung, snow white tan.

In the second verse, the band’s displeasure with their lead singer becomes more apparent when they claim, “Ziggy really sang […] like some cat from Japan”. Since cats usually do not have operatic voices, the statement is apparently not meant as a compliment. As a matter of fact, in Bowie: The Man Who Changed The World (2016), Bowie himself stated, “I hate my singing voice. I hate singing really. It’s not an enjoyment. I mean, you know, someone’s got to do it. I like interpreting songs. […] I would give my right arm, maybe not my right arm. I would give somebodies right arm if I could find somebody to sing one of my songs for me.” Obviously, Bowie did not consider himself to be the greatest singer, which coincides with the band’s opinion of his ability to sing.

Additionally, the second verse offers information about Ziggy’s look and his attitude towards his fans. Ziggy’s “screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo” definitely correspond with David Bowie’s look on stage during the time of the album. The direct reference to “Japan” in line 2 is explained by the fact that his clothes were inspired by the Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto, whose name Bowie saw on a magazine in Suzy Fussey’s studio.

In regard to Ziggy’s attitude towards his fans, the line “lick’em by smiling, he could leave’em to hang” may indicate that he smiled at his fans to show his affection. Consequently, “leaves them to hang” means that people were so affected by his smile that he gets anything he wants from them. As Gormly points out (2018, online), cats lick their owners either because they have nice food in their hands, or they want to show affection. However, since “cat” is also an American, colloquial word for “guy”, it does not necessarily need to refer to the animal.

Undoubtedly, Ziggy Stardust “came on so loaded,” because of his fame. Another possible understanding is that he had money before he became famous, but his lifestyle as a celebrity made him spend everything. Furthermore, “loaded” does not only mean owning a lot of money. According to The Urban Dictionary (online), it also refers to “the act of excessive consumption of alcoholic beverage which fuels the primitive barbaric wild side of any human being.” As if alcohol were not already enough, Bowie extensively used drugs in the 1970s. Thus, “Snow white tan” might possibly be a reference to the white powdery substance cocaine (cf. Spitz 2009:171).

37 chorus 1

So where were the Spiders While the fly tried to break our balls? Just the beer light to guide us, So we bitched about his fans and should we crush his sweet hands?

In the chorus, the Spiders ask themselves where they are left, now that Ziggy is so popular. Ziggy overshadowed his band colleagues, and the question, “So where were the Spiders / While the fly tried to break our balls?” might be an attempt to confront him with their feelings. Interestingly, Bowie included an image taken from nature in this chorus, which might appear far-fetched but is still quite suggestive. Flies usually stick to cobwebs or cocoons and fight until they are killed by the spiders who inhabit the webs. Therefore, Ziggy, aka “the fly”, tried to fight the band, aka “the spider” in order to remain in the spotlight, even if it should cost his life.

Bowie once claimed that people’s interpretations of his lyrics differ immensely from his own intended meaning of a song. Regarding “the beer light”, Bowie stated in an interview that he just saw the moonlight, which was shining through a bottle of beer while he was writing the song. This sounds banal, and people might tend to read too much into it, but, considering that the line itself does not really fit into the chorus, it does make sense. Another idea is that the light describes the neon lights in bars, which illuminate beer advertisements.

The dissatisfaction of the Spiders with Ziggy getting all of the credit, reaches its peak in the last line of the chorus. They begin to “bitch about his fans” and even ask themselves if they should “crush his sweet hands”, which would result in Ziggy’s inability to play the guitar. The increasing aggression from the band is alarming, and Ziggy is advised to take it seriously. verse 3

Ziggy played for time, jiving us that we were voodoo. The kids were just crass, He was the with God-given ass. He took it all too far but boy could he play guitar.

Ziggy starts to “play for time”, which means that he purposefully wastes time in order to avoid being lambasted by his band members. As a consequence, the band claims that Ziggy “jives them”, which means that he lies, by telling them that their playing is as magical as voodoo. According to Haas (2011, online), voodoo is neither violent nor has it anything to do with a doll, as most people assume. It is a religion that has its origins in Africa. People who practice this religion are called voodooists and believe that “each person is responsible for their own

38 actions and capable of self-actualization.” (Haas 2011, online) However, it might also be a reference to , who recorded a song called “Voodoo Child” in 1968. Actually, since Hendrix was left-handed, a reference to him might also be found in the first verse, where it says, “He played it left hand” (cf. line 4 of verse 1).

Interestingly, it seems as if the Spiders were rethinking here their judgements about Ziggy, or at least honoring his ability as a guitar player. “He took it all too far but boy could he play guitar”, clearly shows the band’s inner conflict. On the one hand, they think that Ziggy let his success go to his head, but, on the other hand, they wish to praise his guitar playing. However, calling Ziggy “the nazz”, which might mean “Nazi”, would again be an insult. Furthermore, Bowie and his wife, Angela Bowie, had seen the movie Hitler: The Last Ten Days. Bowie felt ambivalent about the movie, but Hitler’s appearance as a politician made him call Hitler a rock and roll star (cf. Pegg 2016: 325).

Another reference here might be to “the nazz”, which tells the story of Jesus Christ and was first recorded in 1952. It was one of the most famous tracks of the American stand-up comedian and recording artist Lord Richard Buckley. In regard to the line, “The kids were just crass”, Ziggy possibly tries to buy some time, again, in order to delay the Spider’s revenge on him by accusing his fans of being ignorant about the Spiders. chorus 2

Making love with his ego, Ziggy sucked up into his mind. Like a leper messiah When the kids had killed a man I had to break up the band.

The lyrics of the second chorus differ tremendously from those of the first one. Nevertheless, they make the same point that Ziggy Stardust became an egomaniac and considered himself the most important person on stage. In addition to his narcissism, Ziggy, who “made love with his ego”, is compared to a “leper messiah”, which, according to Pegg (2016: 325), “might refer to the stage delusions of Vince Taylor […]”. Vince Taylor was a British rock and roll singer, who was known for his unpredictability on stage. Taylor once claimed, “As soon as I get on stage, I go out of myself, I lose control, often I lose consciousness” (cf. Pegg 2016: 354-355). Although his actions caused him a lot of trouble with his band, he was a big inspiration for Bowie’s alter ego, Ziggy Stardust, because Bowie was impressed by his lifestyle. The end of Taylor’s stage career was caused by a scandalous incident, when he entered the stage only with white robes draped around his body and claimed to be Jesus Christ (cf. Pegg 2016: 355).

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The album Tommy, by the band , tells the “story of a sensory-deprived boy messiah.” (Blake 2013, online) Therefore, it is possible that “the idea of a ‘leper messiah’ visiting a spiritually hungry society has its roots in The Who’s Tommy […]”. (Pegg 2016: 355) Additionally, “Leper Messiah” is the sixth track on the album Master Of Puppets by the band Metallica, which deals with people’s submission to a preacher named “the leper messiah”. The last possible reference to be mentioned here is that the “leper messiah” meant to be Jesus Christ - the messiah who healed people suffering from leprosy.

The line “Ziggy played guitar” is a possible candidate for the hook. Maybe the lines, “So where were the Spiders”, and “Making love with his ego”, are also hooks, because they are accentuated by the same music. Undoubtedly, ascertaining the hook is sometimes a difficult task to undertake, but at other times it is quite obvious, as in the song “Starman”.

4.5 “There’s a starman waiting in the sky” This subchapter deals with the analysis of the song “Starman”. Its song form is verse 1 – verse 2 – chorus 1 – verse 3 – verse 4 – chorus 2 – chorus 3, the hook obviously being the line “There’s a starman waiting in the sky”, which is found in all three choruses. As far as the analysis of chorus 2 and chorus 3 is concerned, the reader is referred to the analysis of the first one, because all three are the same, and there is no need therefore to discuss them in more detail. verse 1

Didn’t know what time it was, The lights were low-ow-ow. I lean back on my radio-o-o, Some cat was laying down some rock ‘n’ roll, “Lotta soul.” he said. verse 2

Then the loud sound did seem to fa-a-ade Came back like a slow voice on a wave of pha-a-ase That weren’t no D.J. that was hazy cosmic jive.

Both verses tell the listener about a radio show which is suddenly disturbed by music that sounds as if it is from a different world. At the beginning, the music is really noisy, until it fades out and later becomes “hazy cosmic jive”. This indicates that the radio show is interrupted by a message from outer space, whose messenger is none other than Ziggy Stardust. As a matter of fact, interference from different radio stations were frequent in the 1970s. Due to the various musical styles, this probably sounded like “hazy cosmic jive”. The fourth line of the first verse,

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“Some cat was lying down some rock ‘n’ roll”, clearly demonstrates Bowie’s liking for using American slang words despite being British, since “cat” is here again used for “guy” (cf. “Ziggy played guitar”, line 2 of verse 2). chorus 1

There’s a starman waiting in the sky He’d like to come and meet us But he thinks he’d blow our minds. There’s a starman waiting in the sky He’s told us not to blow it ‘Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile, He told me: “Let the children lose it, let the children use it, Let all the children boogie.”

The chorus starts with the hook, “There’s a starman waiting in the sky”, which describes Ziggy Stardust bringing hope to people on Earth. It conveys the message that human beings will be saved by an alien named the “starman”, who is “waiting in the sky”. According to Bowie, the “starman” is not Ziggy himself, but his messenger. As mentioned before, the Earth will perish in five years, but there is hope, because of the “starman”, who will come and save it. The fact that the speaker of the song tells the listener about a conversation with Ziggy, indicated by the line “He’d like to come and meet us”, leads to the conclusion that the speaker is not Ziggy, but someone who probably knows him. Another observation about the speaker is the line “There’s a starman waiting in the sky”. Bowie probably sang about himself, because he considered himself as the one everyone was waiting for. Additionally, the lines “He’d like to come and meet us / But he thinks he’d blow our minds” again refer to Bowie, who feared not being accepted by his audience for his otherness. The lines possibly reveal the speaker’s fear about people’s reactions to the “starman”.

Ziggy explains that the “starman” wants to meet the earthlings, but he is apprehensive about people’s reactions and advises them “not to blow it” because everything will turn out fine. It seems like the “starman”, who is obviously an extraterrestrial, is not hostile and just wants people to be happy and dance, which is reflected in the lines “He told me / Let the children lose it, let the children use it / Let all the children boogie”. It is important to mention that Bowie’s idea for the song might stem from his fascination with space and extraterrestrial life. It also clearly works against prejudiced thinking towards aliens being just malicious and evil creatures.

41 verse 3

Well I had to phone someone so I picked on you-ou-ou, Hey, that’s far out! so you heard him too-oo-oo. Switch on the TV we may pick him up on Channel 2. verse 4

Look out your window I can see his li-i-ight, If we can sparkle he may land toni-i-ight, Don’t tell your poppa or he’ll get us locked up in fright.

The first line, “Well I had to phone someone so I picked on you-ou-ou”, suggests that the person who heard Ziggy’s message on the radio probably phones one of his friends in order to tell him or her about the voice on the radio. He realizes that his friend must have heard the message as well, which is shown by the exclamation “Hey, that’s far out so you heard him too!”. As a consequence, both want to turn on the television to catch a glimpse of Ziggy. In 1972, British television consisted only of three channels: BBC1, BBC2 and ITV - “Channel 2” has thus to be a fictional TV channel (cf. Wikipedia, “1972 in British television”, n.d., online).

Obviously, there is a light shining outside that people associate with the “starman”. He will grace people with his presence, if they accomplish his desire to dance, as suggested by the line “If we can sparkle, he may land toni-i-ight”. Adults are possibly afraid of extraterrestrial life- forms, thus he advises children not to tell their parents about it, as proposed in the line “Don’t tell your poppa or he’ll get us locked up in a fright”. In a broader sense, it suggests that perhaps society is not yet sufficiently open to new ideas and, thus, does not want to think about aliens as being friendly creatures.

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5. Aladdin Sane or “Ziggy goes to America”

5.1 Who is Aladdin Sane? It was an incredibly sad day for numerous fans when David Bowie announced that Ziggy Stardust would never take the stage again. Three months before Ziggy’s retirement, Bowie sensed that he needed to come up with a new fictional character. He felt that he owed something to Tony Defries, who had helped his rise to fame. Bowie stated, “Tony Defries and his MainMan organization had seemingly made me a star and I felt obliged to do something to live up to Tony’s expectations. Yeah, Aladdin Sane was kind of a sellout.” (Spitz 2009: 216) Bowie tried to redefine Ziggy Stardust with Aladdin Sane. He explained that there is nothing more to say about Ziggy, since his whole story has already been told on the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Consequently, Bowie had to invent something new, and Aladdin Sane worked as his new stage persona (cf. Spitz 2009: 216).

According to Sheffield (2013, online), Bowie explained: “I didn’t want to be trapped in this Ziggy character all my life. And I guess what I was doing on Aladdin Sane, I was trying to move into the next area – but using a rather pale imitation of Ziggy as a secondary device. In my mind, it was Ziggy Goes to Washington: Ziggy under the influence of America.” Aladdin Sane was characterized by a new, significant look, which included elements from Kabuki and Noh and featured “high-collared satin cloaks designed to be removed with flourishes to reveal a second layer underneath, or sometimes just a pair of briefs.”8 (Spitz 2009: 218)

Significant for Aladdin Sane’s look was the lightning bolt across his face, which was invented by Bowie. It splits his face in half, and reflects his feelings about being torn into different directions throughout his turbulent life (cf. Gallucci n.d., online). Additionally, the tear on his left collarbone was the creation of the photographer Brian Duffy. As expected, the album’s title is a pun, because it is possible to read “Aladdin Sane” in two different ways; as “Aladdin Sane” or “A lad insane”. The pun reflects Bowie’s state of mind at that time, because he wanted to work full-time as a performer. On the other hand, he was exhausted by his tour through America. Hence, “A lad insane” stands for Bowie nearly collapsing throughout his tour, and “Aladdin Sane” was Ziggy Stardust part two; the guy on stage who was feeling good. Moreover, Bowie was struck with a shortage of money, which also made him feel worn out.

8 In Japan, Noh is an official national art ceremony, which was popular among warrior classes and royal families from the 14th century onwards. It is one of the oldest theater traditions and its stories include ghosts, dreams and fairies. Moreover, the actors wear flamboyant clothes and use poetic language (“Noh”, 2016, online).

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Bowie claimed that “A lad insane” was also inspired by his half-brother, Terry, and his mental illness (cf. Wide 2016: letter A). In The Complete David Bowie by (2016: 363), Bowie states, “Ziggy was meant to be clearly cut and well defined with areas for interplay, whereas Aladdin is pretty ephemeral”. Somehow, Aladdin Sane was the extended version of Ziggy Stardust and Bowie’s idea of rock and roll in America (cf. Pegg 2016: 262).

5.2 “Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?)” 5.2.1 Song background The song “Aladdin sane (1913-1938-197?) (RHMS Ellenis)” is the second track on Bowie’s album Aladdin Sane, which was released on April 13, 1973. Bowie’s inspiration for the song stemmed from Evelyn Waugh’s novel , which is a about decadent, young London society between World War I and World War II. According to Pegg (2016: 17), Bowie described the book as follows, “People were frivolous, decadent and silly. And suddenly they were plunged into this horrendous holocaust. They were totally out of place, still thinking about champagne and parties and dressing up. Somehow it seemed to me that they were like people today”. The dates in brackets, in the song’s title, hint at the years before the beginnings of the First and the Second World War. The third date expresses Bowie’s sincere belief in a Third World War that would begin in the 1970s. Moreover, “RHMS Ellenis” was the name of the ship that brought Bowie from the US back to London after his first America tour (cf. Pegg 2016: 17).

Mark Garson’s piano solo gave the song an extraordinary sound. At first, it was a mixture of and Latin motifs. After Bowie’s rejection of both, it sounded more like avant-garde club music. “There were these two chords that were quite simple, and because they were so simple I thought they called for some bluesy playing. So I played a blues solo first. And he said, ‘No.’ I played a Latin solo. He said, ‘No.’ He wanted something avant-garde”. (Jones 2017: 161) Garson, who played in jazz lounges in Greenwich Village and later joined the Spiders, described the song as rebellious and dissonant (cf. Spitz 2009: 203). After a long break, Garson breathed new life into the song in 1996, by recreating the piano solo, which was then added to the Summer Festivals tour.9

9The Summer Festivals tour started on June 4, 1996 and ended on July 21, 1996. Bowie and his band members toured through Japan, Russia, Iceland and some countries in Europe (cf. Pegg 2016: 600). 44

5.2.2 “Who will love Aladdin Sane” This subchapter shortly discusses the album’s title track “Aladdin Sane”. The song structure is verse 1 – verse 2 – chorus 1 – verse 3 – chorus 2 – chorus 3. Since the third chorus is the same as the second one, no further discussion is provided. The song tells the listener about young men who are departing for war. The speaker calls them “lads insane” because they volunteered. However, they were enticed towards the war under false pretenses, by the government, and did not know what awaited them. verse 1

Watching him dash away, swinging an old bouquet – dead roses, Sake and strange divine, Uh-h-h-uh-h-uh, you’ll make it. verse 2

Passionate bright young things, takes him away to war, don’t fake it Saddening glissando strings Uh-h-h-uh-h-uh, you’ll make it.

The song starts off with a young man’s departure for war, which is accompanied by people’s cheer, “you’ll make it”. What becomes clear throughout the song is that “A lad insane” does not represent just one person, but stands for a whole group of young men who volunteered for war. However, most of the young soldiers were unexperienced in fighting and were, thus, running towards their deaths, which “swinging an old bouquet – dead roses” may suggest. Usually, a rose stands for love, beauty and virtue. Here, “dead roses” represent death, decay and imperfection. Undoubtedly, young soldiers would not have volunteered if they had known of the atrocities that awaited them. In order to recruit as many young men as possible, they were talked into believing various promising chances.

“Sake and strange divine”, as well as the lines “passionate bright young things” and “saddening glissando strings”, indicates that suspense, excitement and romanticism of war persuaded young men to enlist.10 Since a descending “glissando” is heard at the end of verse 2, it may function as a short bridge between the second verse and the first chorus.

10 “Sake” is a Japanese rice wine made by fragmenting rice, and “glissando” is a French musical term, which means “to glide” from one pitch to the other. 45 chorus 1

Who will love Aladdin Sane? Battle cries and champagne just in time for sunrise. Who will love Aladdin Sane?

The first and third lines of the chorus are the hook, “Who will love Aladdin Sane?”, and question people’s attitude towards young soldiers and their motivations for volunteering. According to Thacker (2014, online), there was a huge recruiting campaign, which was supported by posters and newspaper advertisements. Priests and politicians were speaking to people in towns in order to remind them of their patriotic duty. Thacker also writes, “There was a broad national consensus that Britain was fighting a righteous war, and that volunteering was, put simply, the right moral choice.” (2014, online) Moreover, young men were insulted by the press when they chose not to volunteer. “It was indeed this growing social pressure which helped maintain the flow of volunteers well into 1915.” (Thacker 2014, online)

The promises led young men to expect “champagne” [also Sake], which stands for decadence and is considered a beverage for wealthy people, instead of hearing “battle cries” used to encourage the soldiers and frighten the enemy. Additionally, “sunrise” symbolizes the beginning of a new day, and might, thus, stand for the forthcoming battle. verse 3

Motor sensational, Paris or maybe hell, I’m waiting. Clutches of sad remains Waits for Aladdin Sane, you’ll make it.

Undoubtedly, war did not only affect people’s minds, but also their bodies. It was hard for people to cope with the horrible situations they found themselves in, which resulted in shell shock and other traumas triggered by their overwhelmed nervous systems. Hence, “Motor sensational” possibly refers to the motor nerves, which, according to The Free Dictionary’s Medical Dictionary (2003, online), are defined as nerves that “transmit impulses from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles.” Another possible idea is that “motor sensational” refers to “pulse motor sensational”, a diagnosis that follows an injury or fracture.

It is worth mentioning that soldiers could not decide on their country of deployment. Either they were lucky and ended up in a more peaceful city, like Paris, or they landed in a literate “hell” and had to face unbearable atrocities. Certainly, “Clutches of sad remained”, because numerous soldiers suffered the same fate of being stationed in countries where they had no

46 chance of survival. Considering that Aladdin Sane might die in the war, the cheer at the end of verse 3, “you’ll make it”, seems to be a sarcastic and distasteful remark. chorus 2

Who will love Aladdin sane? Millions weep a fountain, just in case of sunrise. Who will love Aladdin Sane, Will love Aladdin Sane, Will love Aladdin Sane?

The second line, as well as the length of the second chorus, is different from the first chorus. It discusses the possibility of a battle and the consequences for the surviving relatives. “Millions weep a fountain” refers to the large number of people shedding bitter tears about their lost ones in battle. outro

They say the lights are oh so bright on Broadway

Although the outro consists of just one line, it is truly meaningful. Until now, this seemed to be a song about young male Americans who were talked into volunteering to fight a war in foreign countries. However, another possible interpretation might be that a foreign soldier is dreaming about New York, where “the lights are bright on Broadway”. Somehow, Bowie managed to write a song, whose outro might make people re-read the song from a different perspective.

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6. Halloween Jack

6.1 Who is Halloween Jack? It took David Bowie a long time to leave behind Ziggy Stardust. The album cover of Pin Ups - the follow-up album of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars – shows Bowie half naked with a haircut that was characteristic of Ziggy. Additionally, the cover of the Diamond Dogs album shows Bowie “as a half-man, half- dog entity that once again shook up the censors.” (Jones 2016, online) However, during the Diamond Dog’s tour through North America, in the summer of 1974, Bowie performed for the first time as his new persona - Halloween Jack (cf. Goddard 2013: 297-298). The audience was astonished by Bowie’s new appearance, since they expected Bowie to still be dressed up as Ziggy Stardust. The new persona, who was Aladdin Sane’s successor, wore an eyepatch and had strawberry blond hair, which was swept back James Dean-style (cf. Pegg 2016: 558). Regarding his name, it is possibly derived from the Irish myth about “Stingy Jack”.11

6.2 “Diamond Dogs” 6.2.1 Song background “Diamond Dogs” is the second track of the album Diamond Dogs, which was released on April 24, 1974. Unfortunately, the song failed to chart in America, but reached number 21 in Britain. Due to the song’s poor reception, it was dropped during one of Bowie’s tours. He began recording the song on January 15, 1974 at , with Bowie as the lead guitar player. The actual responsibility of the musical arrangement was Bowie’s, because Garson and Dunbar held a meeting at Olympic Studios. Fortunately, both returned together with , who played bass on the single “Space Oddity”. All three, plus the new drummer and new guitarist Alan Parker, supported Bowie in developing his album Diamond Dogs (cf. Pegg 2016: 369).

The title track introduces the listener to David Bowie’s new character, who is explained by Pegg as, “the louche, post-apocalypse lounge lizard Halloween Jack, ‘a real cool cat’ who,

11 The tradition of pumpkin carving derives from an Irish myth about a man named “Stingy Jack”. He refused to pay for the drinks to which he had invited the devil. Therefore, he convinced the devil to transform himself into a coin that Jack could use for paying. However, instead of paying for the drinks, Jack put the coin in his pocket next to a silver cross. The cross prevented the devil from transforming himself back again, and Jack could make a deal with him. The deal was that the devil should not bother Jack for about a year in order to regain his freedom. The next year, Jack tricked the devil again. He convinced him to climb up a tree to pick a fruit, and while the devil was doing so, Jack was carving the sign of a cross into the tree’s bark. Hence, the devil was trapped on the tree and had to promise Jack not to bother him for ten more years. After Jack’s death, God did not allow such a mean person in heaven and the devil did not want him either. The devil sent Jack off in the dark with a burning coal that Jack put into a carved-out turnip. He is wandering around the Earth ever since. The Irish people refer to him as “Jack of the lantern” or simply “Jack O’Lantern” (cf. History.com Staff 2009, online). 48 according to the title track, ‘lives on top of Chase’ in the ravaged urban landscape that provided the album’s environment”. (2016: 370) Halloween Jack is hiding on the rooftops of the fictional, dystopian Hunger City and rules over the Diamond Dogs. Bowie’s inspiration for the Diamond Dogs derived from the works of the authors Burroughs, Burgess and Dickens.

According to Pegg, Bowie explained his ideas about the Diamond Dogs in 1993’s The David Bowie Story: “I had in my mind this kind of half Wild Boys, Nineteen Eighty-Four world and there were these ragamuffins, but they were a bit more violent than ragamuffins. I guess they staggered through from Clockwork Orange too. They’d taken over this barren city, this city that was falling apart. They’d been able to break into windows of jewellers and things, so they’d dressed themselves up in furs and diamonds, but they had snaggle teeth – really filthy, kind of like violent Oliver Twists. It was a take on, what if those guys had gone malicious? If Fagin’s gang had gone absolutely ape-shit?”12 (2016: 74) The idea of living on a rooftop actually stemmed from Bowie’s father, who told him a story about poor children living on rooftops in London slums. Possibly inspired by this story, Bowie invented Halloween Jack, and the gangs who were living on the streets. These gangs had to roller skate, because there were no means of transport available. Unfortunately, the roller-skates were not oiled properly and, hence, they squeaked a lot. Somehow, Bowie prognosticated punk with his song idea, “So there were these gangs of squeaking, roller-skating, vicious hoods, with Bowie knives and furs on, and they were all skinny because they hadn’t eaten enough, and they all had funny-coloured hair”. (Pegg 2016: 74)

Bowie’s stage performance of “Diamond Dogs” was extraordinary. It began with Bowie on the catwalk, holding two dog leashes in his hands to keep ‘the Dogs’ under control. These ‘Dogs’ were actually human beings, who moved around on stage, took over at the end of the song, and tied Bowie up with the leashes. Due to this and other performances, the whole show seemed to be more like a musical than a rock concert (cf. Pegg 2016: 559).

6.2.2 “They call them the Diamond Dogs” The following subchapter discusses Bowie’s song “Diamond Dogs”, which tells the listener about the fictional world of Hunger City and its inhabitants. The song format is verse 1 – verse 2 – pre-chorus 1 – chorus 1 – verse 3 – verse 4 – pre-chorus 2 – chorus 2 - verse 5 – pre-chorus

12 Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel written by and published in 1949. The novels’ setting was Airstrip One, whose citizens are victims of war, governmental supervision and are manipulated by the public. (“Nineteen Eighty-Four” n.d., online) Wild Boys is a novel written by William S. Burroughs and published in 1971. The novel is set in the twentieth century and portrays a homosexual youth movement, whose intention is to ruin western civilization. (“Wild Boys” n.d., online) A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satirical black comedy novel by Anthony Burgess about extreme teenage violence, published in 1962. (“A Clockwork Orange” n.d., online) 49

3 – chorus 3. Since the pre-choruses and choruses are repeated, they will only be discussed once. verse 1

As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent You asked for the latest party, With your silicone hump and your ten-inch stump: Dressed like a priest you was, Tod Browning’s Freak you was

The first verse describes a person, whose gender is unknown at the beginning. The person was “pulled out of the oxygen tent.” According to The Medterms Medical Dictionary (2016, online), an oxygen tent is a “tent-like device that is used in a medical setting to deliver high levels of oxygen to a bedridden patient. The tent covers the entire head and upper body, and oxygen is pumped in from a tank”. Oddly enough, the person “asked for the latest party,” which is strange considering that he or she just had severe health problems.

In addition to the state of health, the speaker reveals some details about the look. It is likely that the person he talks about is transsexual, because of the “silicone hump” and the “ten-inch stump”. The previous possibly means breast implants or butt implants, and the latter refers to a penis. Another possibility is that Bowie intended to take the words literally. It means that “stump” describes the person’s missing leg, and “hump” a hunchback. The question is: what does “silicone” have to do with a hunchback? Since Bowie had a preference for science fiction, it might describe some sort of artificial hunchback filled with silicone.

Obviously, “Dressed like a priest you was” points out that the clothes are similar to those of a priest, who usually wore black clothes back then. There is a reference to punks in this line, because, in the 1970s, it was common for punks to wear black trash bags.

As mentioned before, many writers inspired the song, but the most obvious and most significant inspiration was the film director Tod Browning. “Tod Browning’s Freak you was” refers to the movie Freaks, which was released in 1932. Freaks tells the story of a trapeze artist named Cleopatra. She has an affair with the no good strong-man Hercules and makes fun of Hans, a guy who is terribly in love with her. However, it is possible that Hans will become wealthy and hence, she decides to marry him. Even though both are husband and wife, she tries to kill him by pouring poison in his drink. He noticed it and, consequently, Cleopatra and Hercules are chased through the woods by the “freaks”, who are circus performers with real deformities. At the end of the movie, Hercules is killed and Cleopatra is turned into a half-woman, half-chicken and squawks like a bird (cf. Malcolm 1999, online). The audience regarded the movie as an 50 insult to disabled people. That was the reason for its banishment in numerous countries. Nevertheless, it reached cult status in the 1970s. The speaker of the song calls the person a “freak” that indicates his or her maladjustment to life. verse 2

Crawling down the alley on your hands and knee, I’m sure you’re not protected, for it’s plain to see. The Diamond Dogs are poachers and they hide behind trees, Hunt you to the ground they will, mannequins with kill appeal.

Accusing a person of being a “freak” is carried further in the second verse. The “freak” is apparently one-legged, because the first line, “Crawling down the alley on your hands and knee” hints at the inability to walk. Probably the person had to recover in the oxygen tent due to plastic surgery. Obviously, the “freak” is unprotected and should be aware of the Diamond Dogs, who the speaker calls “poachers”. “Poachers” are illegal hunters, who possibly have to hide behind trees in order to attack unsuspecting victims.

Moreover, the Diamond Dogs are emotionless, as the following line proposes. Mannequins are models of human bodies, often used for presenting clothes in shop windows. Hence, “mannequins with kill appeal” describes the Diamond Dogs as heartless creatures who have no feelings, and are, thus, able to kill someone without regretting it. Interestingly, one scene of the sci-fi movie The Omega Man, which was released in 1971, shows the actor Charlton Heston holding a gun in his hand, while flirting with a mannequin in a shop. Considering that Bowie was a science fiction fan, he might have drawn an inspiration from this. pre-chorus 1

(Will they come?) I’ll keep a friend serene. (Will they come?) Oh baby, come unto me. (Will they come?) Well, she’s come, been and gone. chorus 1

Come out of the garden, baby You’ll catch your death in the fog Young girl, they call them the Diamond Dogs Young girl, they call them the Diamond Dogs

To begin with, the repeated questions of the first three lines are probably asked by the speaker. The brackets indicate a lowered voice that keeps the reader in suspense of what will happen next. He raises the question, if the Diamond Dogs are about to come or not. The lines “Oh baby,

51 come on to me” and “Well, she’s come, been and gone,” make apparent that the speaker is talking to a girl or woman. It seems like he wants her to have sex with him, but she disappears after it.

The speaker then tries to seduce the girl by telling her to “come out of the garden”. On the other hand, he warns the girl of leaving the garden, by mentioning that she will die outside. The line “You’ll catch your death in the fog” does not sound very inviting either. “Fog” creates a feeling of uncertainty, because nobody knows what lays in there. It might also be possible that Bowie wanted to use the word ‘fog’ to describe the smoke of Hunger City that was created by the aggressive dominating atmosphere.

A story that might have also influenced Bowie in creating the “Diamond Dogs” is the one about Isaac Newton’s dog. It was known that Newton had a dog named Diamond, who meant all the world to him. One day, when Newton was working on his manuscript, somebody knocked at the door. Unfortunately, Diamond was so excited about the visitor that she bumped into the table leg and knocked over a lit candle on the desk that burned Newton’s manuscript. Very famous are Newton’s words after having noticed what his beloved dog had done: “O Diamond Diamond, little do you know the mischief you have done to me!” (cf. Messenger 2015, online). verse 3

Now Halloween Jack is a real cool cat And he lives on top of Manhattan Chase, The elevator’s broke, so he slides down a rope Onto the street below, oh Tarzan, go man go verse 4

Meet his little hussy with his ghost town approach, Her face is sans feature, but she wears a Dali brooch. Sweetly reminiscent, something mother used to bake, Wrecked up and paralyzed, Diamond Dogs are sable-ized.

Verse 3 and verse 4 describe Bowie’s new persona, “Halloween Jack.” Halloween Jack is “a real cool cat” and “lives on top of Manhattan Chase.” As a matter of fact, Manhattan Chase means the old Chase Manhattan Bank Building, which is known as the Queens Clock Tower, which was completed in 1927 (cf. Srinivasan 2015, online). It is built in the neo-Gothic style and fits perfectly into the skyline of Hunger City’s image of an old, shady town. There is no doubt that it must have been a high building, because, otherwise, Halloween Jack would not have to take the elevator or a rope.

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The lines “The elevator’s broke, so he slides down a rope” and “Onto the street below, oh Tarzan, go man go,” are clear hints to the Legend of Tarzan, who is known for his rope-to-rope swinging throughout the woods.13

Verse four begins with Halloween Jack’s encounter with his “little hussy,” who is supposed to be his girlfriend. They meet the same way as two cowboys approaching each other on the street, with a “ghost town approach.” “Ghost town” is the term used for deserted towns, which were usually shot up, in the Old West in the 19th century. Numerous people left their homes due to a lack of money (cf. Brown Hunt 2014, online). Approaching the girl like that creates a bizarre image, because cowboys usually fought duels on the streets and were often shot.

Although there seems to be nothing special about the girl’s face, the line “but she wears a Dali brooch,” notes, however, that she is in possession of expensive jewelry. In fact, Salvador Dali designed very expensive brooches, like ‘The Eye of Time’, which was sold for £ 96,000.14 Since Halloween Jack and the Diamond Dogs are robbers, they possibly stole the brooch for her.

The girl is definitely someone Halloween Jack’s mother would want him to marry. The phrase “like my mother used to bake”, is an advertisement for food or bakery. It brings back childhood memories of his mother’s style of baking. Usually, these memories are great ones, because mothers are regarded as the greatest cooks. Hence, Halloween Jack’s hussy is a girl who his mother would approve of. Furthermore, his girlfriend is involved again in the last line, “Wrecked up and paralyzed”. She is possibly wrecked up, because of the dystopian city she lives in. verse 5

In the year of the scavenger, the season of the bitch Sashay on the boardwalk, scurry to the ditch. Just another future song, lonely little kitsch. (There’s gonna be sorrow,) try and wake up tomorrow.

The last verse begins with the line “In the year of the scavenger, the season of the bitch”. “The year of the scavenger” describes the year as the perfect one of plunderers like the Diamond

13 According to Woods, Edgar Rice Burroughs is the author of the series of books entitled Tarzan of the apes. “Tarzan is an aristocratic child left to fend for himself in the African jungle after he and his parents are marooned. The orphaned John Clayton is raised by a family of semi-literate apes who name him Tarzan, meaning ‘white of skin’. So begins a series of wild adventures as Tarzan fights numerous jungle beasts and bloodthirsty hunters as the head of his adopted family”. (2016, online) 14 ‘The Eye of Time’ is made of platinum and diamonds. It is shaped like a human eye and three-inches long. Dali’s original brooch was a gift for his wife but the company that made the brooch had Dali’s permission to produce copies of it (cf. Daily Mail Reporter, 2013, online).

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Dogs. The word “bitch” does not necessarily refer to a girl or woman. It is more likely that it means ‘female dog’ in order to fit together with the Diamond Dogs. Furthermore, it is also possible that the line is a reference to ’s song “Season of the Witch,” which was released in 1966. According to Bebergal, “Season of the Witch” is “a dark and prophetic song suggesting the new age dawning brings with it darkness.” (2014, online)

Darkness is definitely an image that fits with the dystopian atmosphere of Hunger City. At first glance, its citizens walk very confidently and seem to be really tough. The line, “Sashay on the boardwalk, scurry to the ditch,” however, points out that they hide when something scares them. The reaction is understandable considering the fact that they live in a very dangerous city. The following line seems to have nothing to do with the previous one. Maybe Bowie wanted to include some sort of self-irony because “Just another future song, lonely little kitsch” depicts the song as being unspectacular and “just another future song.” The word “kitsch” is used to criticize art, which is regarded as poor in quality and usually tasteless. Maybe Bowie meant “totalitarian kitsch” that, according to Berger, describes “the official art of authoritarian governments, aimed at extending state control through propaganda […] foster a personality cult surrounding the dictator and celebrate ceaseless and irrevocable social and economic progress through images of churning factories and happy, exultant workers.” (2010, online) Citizens sashay confidently and happy on the boardwalk, but are still controlled by the Diamond Dogs.

At the end, the speaker tells the listener that the song is “just another future song”, thus, forget about it, go to sleep, do not worry and pretend that everything will be alright, even though “there’s gonna be sorrow” in the future.

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7. The Thin White Duke

7.1. Los Angeles David Bowie moved to Los Angeles in the spring of 1975, because he wanted to become a movie star, instead of being a “useless fucking rock singer” (cf. Light 2017, online). After he arrived in L.A., Bowie met Glenn Hughes, the bassist of the band . Bowie decided to stay at his house. Hughes claimed that Bowie was really messed up, because of his immense drug abuse and paranoia. One day, he found knives and other sharp objects under Bowie’s bed; an incident Hughes traced back to the Manson family, who committed a murder only four houses away. Bowie was terribly afraid of being the victim of such a crime and therefore hid defense equipment under his bed.

However, to a large extent Bowie’s cocaine abuse triggered numerous fears and neuroses. According to Spitz, Hughes claimed, “It was very speedy coke. David never slept. Never slept. He was in a coke storm. We would be up three or four days at a time. I’d leave and come back and continue the same conversation we left off”. (2009: 259) Hughes further claimed that they never ran out of cocaine, because his dealer was always spending time at his house. Bowie admitted, “I paid with the worst manic depression of my life. My psyche went through the roof, it just fractured into pieces. I was hallucinating twenty-four hours a day…I felt like I’d fallen into the bowels of the earth.” (Spitz 2009: 260)

During this time, Bowie only drank milk and ate peppers. Consequently, he lost a lot of weight, and looked really skinny and pale. According to Jones, Bowie stated, “I have various photographs of me looking skeletal, which remind me how badly behaved I was back in the 70s. […] How did I ever get to that state? How did I ever survive it?” (2017: 229). Hughes claimed that Bowie only survived because of his assistant Corinne Schwab or ‘Coco’. “Without Corinne, David would have not been alive in the last ten or twenty years. She warded off all the wrong people.” (Jones 2017: 224)

Bowie was terribly afraid of witchcraft. He was completely convinced that witches would use his semen to create a child who would be sacrificed to the devil. In order to free himself from his paranoia, he asked for the white witch, Walli Elmlark. She taught classes in magic and was a friend of Jimi Hendrix and Marc Bolan. Moreover, her friendly nature convinced numerous musicians to go to her for spiritual guidance. Bowie also wanted to make use of her services, and Elmlark consequently performed a successful act of exorcism by writing spells and incantations out for him (cf. Spitz 2009: 261-262).

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Abusing drugs did not prevent Bowie from acting in the movie The Man Who Fell to Earth, which was directed by Nicholas Roeg.15 After some scenes, which were shot in New Mexico, Bowie returned to LA. He soon started to work on his new album, Station to Station (cf. Spitz 2009: 262-265).

7.2 Who is the Thin White Duke? Bowie was highly influenced by the movie character Newton. After having returned from New Mexico, he still wore Newton’s slicked-back, red colored hair with blond streaks. Additionally, Bowie was dressed in a white shirt, black pants and a vest. The Thin White Duke, who Bowie described as “a nasty character,” was born (cf. Light 2017, online).

The character was created at a time when Bowie was fascinated with the occultist . However, Crowley was not the only one who influenced the Thin White Duke. Nietzsche’s concept of the ‘Übermensch’ and Nazi imagery contributed to Bowie’s new stage persona.16 Bowie himself described the Thin White Duke as a “very Aryan, fascist type; a would-be romantic with absolutely no emotion at all but who spouted a lot of neo-romance” (Wide 2016: letter T). Some of Bowie’s comments about the Nazis and Hitler were slightly over the top, for example calling Hitler a “rock ‘n’ roll star”. That was the reason for the negative reception of his new persona. One day, Bowie encountered a precarious situation. He got out of the car wearing a brown shirt and his colored blond hair swept back. Then, he made a gesture that was perceived as a Nazi salute to his fans. Bowie tried to explain it as a waving gesture that the photographer captured at the wrong moment (cf. Wide 2016: letter T).

However, Bowie blamed his immense drug abuse for his bizarre statements. In order to free himself from drugs, he left Los Angeles and got rid of the Thin White Duke. According to Wide (2016: letter T), “Bowie tried to distance himself from the Thin White Duke’s persona by saying, ‘What you see on stage isn’t sinister. It’s pure clown. I’m using myself as a canvas and

15 The Man Who Fell to Earth is based on Walter Trevis’ 1963 novel of the same name. Pegg describes the movie’s story as follows, “The story, which is slight but charged with implication, sees Thomas Jerome Newton (Bowie) arriving in Middle America and founding a prosperous business empire by establishing patents on several remarkable inventions. In reality he is a visitor from a drought-stricken planet, the inventions are based on alien technology, and his plan is to fund a space programme that will return him home in time to save his family”. (2016: 658) Actually, in Trevis’ novel, Newton has to find water in order to save his dying world. However, the film director wanted to put more emphasis on Newton’s loss of identity and on his defeat by their hands. Newton falls victim to alcohol, television and has an affair. He gets mentally harmed by the government that decided to kidnap him. At the end, he is a broken man and wants to contact his wife. He tries to do this by sending radio waves of his recorded song into the sky and hopes that those will reach his planet (cf. Pegg 2016: 658). 16 According to Wikipedia,“The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of . In his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (German: Also sprach Zarathustra), Nietzsche has his character Zarathustra posit the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself”. (“Übermensch” n.d, online) 56 trying to paint the truth of our time on it. The white face, the baggy pants – they’re Pierrot, the eternal clown putting over the great sadness of 1976.’”

7.3 “Station To Station” 7.3.1 Song background “Station To Station” is the title track of the album Station To Station, which was released on 23 January 1976. The album was recorded at in Los Angeles and includes the songs “Station To Station”, “Golden Years”, “”, “TVC 15”, “Stay” and “Wild Is The Wind”. It was produced by David Bowie and Harry Maslin, who was also the co- producer of Bowie’s previous album, . Station To Station reached number five on the UK charts and number three on the U.S charts (cf. Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide 2015: 44).

As a matter of fact, “Station To Station” is Bowie’s longest studio track and lasts more than 10 minutes. The song begins with an outstanding intro that sounds like an accelerating steam train. Bowie’s inspiration for the intro derived from ’s 1974 album Autobahn, whose first track starts off with a car revving up its engine. Later, Kraftwerk included the lines, “From Station to Station back to Düsseldorf city, meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie”, in their title track of the album Trans-Europe Express. The lines were accompanied by the synthesized sound of a fast-moving train. Actually, another possible influence for Bowie’s song is Edgar Froese, the founder of the band Tangerine Dream. His solo album, Epsilon in Malaysian Pale, which was released in 1975, also starts off with train sounds (cf. Pegg 2016: 266). In The Complete David Bowie, Pegg describes the intro as follows, “However, the railway motif of ‘Station To Station’ is something of a red herring. Certainly it expresses what David later called the album’s ‘wayward spiritual search’, restating the travelling metaphor familiar from earlier compositions […]” (2016: 266)

Bowie explained that the title refers to the Stations of the Cross, which are “fourteen landmarks on Christ’s path to the crucifixion, each a symbolic stopping-place for prayer in the carvings of medieval churches.” (Pegg 2016: 266) As a matter of fact, Bowie combined the Stations of the Cross with the Sephiroth, who are creative forces that mediate between the created world and an infinite God. Those forces form the basis of the Jewish mystical system named ‘Kabbalah’ (cf. Segal 1995, online). Actually, Bowie was reading the book The Kabbalah Unveiled, which was written by S.L. MacGregor Mathers in 1975. Mathers was the chief of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and responsible for Aleister Crowley’s exclusion from the Order (cf. Pegg 2016: 266). 57

However, Jimi Page, the founder and guitarist of the band , also influenced the song. Page was also interested in occultism and in Aleister Crowley’s teaching. Moreover, Page joined Bowie’s earlier recordings playing his guitar, but became highly addicted to heroin in 1975. Led Zeppelin’s album Physical Graffiti was released a few months earlier than Bowie’s Station To Station. This leads to the conclusion that the groove and tempo of “Station To Station” was inspired by the famous riff of “Kashmir”, the sixth track on side A of Physical Graffiti. (cf. Pegg 2016: 267).

Interestingly, an edit of “Station to Station” was recorded, which lasts for 3 minutes and 40 seconds. Compared to the original length (more than 10 minutes), the whole opening sequence of the song is missing. This edit was never released, but it was part of the single edits on 2010’s Station To Station: Deluxe Edition, and as the 2015’s picture disc of “Golden Years.”17

In regard to the song’s live performances, it was played as the opening track on the 1976 tour and many others, for example, the Serious Moonlight and the Sound + Vision tours. Moreover, Bowie performed the song on stage in the movie Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo by Ulrich Edel, which was released in 1981 (cf. Pegg 2016: 267).18

7.3.2 “The Return of the Thin White Duke” This subchapter deals with the detailed analysis of the song “Station To Station”. The instrumental intro of the song lasts for 3 minutes and 18 seconds. It starts with the sound of an accelerating train and is joined shortly after by a guitar, organ, melodica and drums. Interestingly, the song does not begin with a verse like most of Bowie’s songs. It starts with the first chorus. chorus 1

The return of the Thin White Duke Throwing darts in lovers’ eyes

The first chorus consists of only two lines, which introduce the listener to the Thin White Duke. The line, “Throwing darts in lover’s eyes” is explained by Koenig (1996, online) as follows,

17 A picture disc is a record that includes pictures on their playing surface. Hence, they look like round photographs that are able to play music. (“Picture Discs” n.d., online) 18 Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo is a German movie about a girl who slips into drugs and prostitution. Actually, the film was said to be based on a true story, but later it was discovered to be plausible fiction. Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck took Vera Christiane Felscherinow as a model for their book of the same name (“Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo” n.d., online). She was the one who watched Bowie perform in real life on the Station To Station tour in West . That is why David Bowie appears in the movie at a concert in West Berlin, one of the places with the biggest drug scene. In reality, the scene was filmed at the New York’s Hurrah club in October 1980. On stage, Bowie was dressed in a red jacket and black jeans and performed his song, “Station To Station” (cf. Pegg 2016: 665). 58

“In Crowley’s system, the dart or arrow is a symbol of direction, and shows the dynamic of True Will – which is not being but going, not individual but universal. The arrow pierces all points simultaneously in a perpetual orgasm; it is tipped with poison, an alkahest capable of dissolving the illusion of separation.” One of Aleister Crowley’s Tarot cards is called “The Lovers”. Both figures on this card are “synthesized, which is Perfection”. (Koenig 1996, online) Hence, “throwing darts in lover’s eyes” is explained as a flight of darts towards perfection (cf. Koenig 1996, online).

Another possible interpretation is that “throwing darts” refers to the Buddhist concept of the first and second dart of suffering. The first dart represents emotional or physical pain that occurs when you bump your head. Usually people start swearing because they hurt themselves. This self-judgement is referred to as the second dart (cf. Dolezal 2012, online). The Thin White Duke sees the lover’s vulnerability as his target. The ‘eyes’ are often described as windows to the soul, and he probably wants his lover to suffer by throwing darts into his eyes (cf. Dolezal 2012, online). verse 1

Here are we, one magical moment Such is the stuff, from where dreams are woven Bending sound, dredging the ocean Lost in my circle Here am I, flashing no color Tall in this room overlooking the ocean Here are we, one magical movement From Kether to Malkuth There are you, drive like a demon From station to station

With the initial lines, “Here are we, one magical moment / Such is the stuff, from where dreams are woven”, Bowie might be referring to himself as an artist, who enjoys the magical moments on stage. Bowie borrowed the second line from William Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest. Its original wording can be found in the first scene of the fourth act, “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep”. (“The Tempest Act 4 Scene 1” n.d., online) The duke and powerful magician Prospero addresses the audience, as well as the actors, with these words about the inevitability of death. Moreover, he leaves no room for an afterlife by reflecting on the illusionary nature of all things. Due to the fact that Bowie’s album is full of mysticism, paranoia and spiritual uncertainty, the lines fit perfectly into the song.

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The next line, “Bending sound / dredging the ocean”, also refers to Shakespeare’s Tempest. In this scene, Prospero wants to separate himself from magic, and claims, “And deeper than did ever plummet sound / I’ll drown my book”. (“The Tempest Act 5 Scene 1” n.d., online) The Thin White Duke returns and wants to regain his power. Consequently, he “dredges the ocean” in order to find the book.

It is proposed that the line refers to the Nazi’s idea about cleaning the world of the Jews. This would align with the previous statement about Bowie’s fascination with Hitler.

“Lost in my circle” is a reference to the Sephirot - the ten attributes in Kabbalah.19 These attributes are often presented as ten circles, which are connected to each other. Bowie probably wanted to express his inability to leave one of the circles. Another idea is that Bowie is “lost in his circle” of light when performing on stage. The “magical moment” of the first line, perhaps, means the beginning of the concert when the lights go out on stage. Hence, both lines fit perfectly together.

Additionally, “flashing no color”, as well as “From Kether to Malkuth”, refers to the Sephirot. Kether is the “uppermost aspect of the Sefirot” and is colorless. (Segal 1995, online) Malkuth is the tenth circle, at the bottom of the Sephirot, and is a concept that represents God’s dwelling (cf. Segal 1995, online). Furthermore, Bowie presumably considered white as no color and used it for the Thin White Duke’s name.

The meaning of “Here are we, one magical movement / From Kether to Malkuth” is described by Pegg as follows:

According to the Kabbalah the divine sphere of the Godhead, or Crown of Creation, is called Kether, while the sphere of the physical Kingdom is known as Malkuth. For Bowie, whose work since the late 1960s had systematically pondered transmutations between divine and mortal states of being, these teachings offered fertile ground: expanding on his lyrical tradition of messiahs, supermen, fallen gods and transcendentalism, the migration from the celestial to the earthly was now expressed as ‘one magical movement from Kether to Malkuth’. The spheres exist at opposite ends of the Tree of Life, a Kabbalistic pattern which Bowie had adopted as a talismanic protection at the time […] (Pegg 2016: 266)

Bowie refers once more to The Tempest and Prospero. It seems like he is torn between the Thin White Duke and Prospero, who wants to break up with magic. Prospero is “overlooking the ocean”, which suggests that he is powerful and, thus, capable of separating himself from his magical powers.

19 According to The Kabbalah Centre (n.d., online), Kabbalah “is an ancient spiritual wisdom which teaches the individual and the world as a whole how we can improve our lives.” 60

Obviously, Bowie’s great fascination with occultism and mysticism reached its peak with this album, which was partly caused by his immense drug abuse. chorus 2

The return of the Thin White Duke Throwing darts in lover’s eyes The return of the Thin White Duke Throwing darts in lover’s eyes The return of the Thin White Duke Making sure white stains

The first five lines of the second chorus are repeated from the first chorus and are, thus, neglected. “Making sure white stains”, refers to Aleister Crowley’s book White Stains. The book was written under the “George Archibald Bishop” and was published in 1898. It consists of numerous highly sexual poems written in English and French. According to Graham (2016, online), “Crowley himself later justified this short work as follows: ‘I invented a poet who went wrong, who began with normal innocent enthusiasms and gradually developed various vices. He ends by being stricken with disease and madness, culminating in murder. In his poems he describes his downfall, always explaining the psychology of each act.’” As a matter of fact, Crowley’s writings were influenced by Kabbalistic teachings, as well as Buddhism, Yoga, Tarot, astrology and many more. Hence, the perennial references to Crowley are justified and appropriate. verse 2

Once there were mountains on mountains And once there were sun birds to soar with And once I could never be down Got to keep searching and searching And oh, what will I be believing And who will connect me with love? Wonder who, wonder who, wonder when Have you sought fortune, evasive and shy? Drink to the man who protect you and I Drink, drink, drain your glass, raise your glass high

First of all, the pace of the song changes with the beginning of the second verse. After the first chorus, the song starts to gain a marching sound. In the second chorus, the music merges into a funky beat. The second verse evokes a melancholic feeling. It seems like the speaker looks back at better times, when “there were mountains on mountains”, “sun birds to soar with” and “he could never be down”. Bowie was aware of his destructive lifestyle and wanted to escape from

61 it. His desperate attempts to free himself from his dull existence are supported by the line “Got to keep searching and searching”. He is obviously searching for love or for his belief with the following lines: “And oh, what will I be believing / And who will connect me with love? / Wonder who, wonder who, wonder when”.

The speaker wants us to raise our glasses and “Drink to the men who protect you and I”. Who are the men who protect Bowie? It is possible that the speaker refers to Aleister Crowley and Jimi Page, because both were important people during Bowie’s lifetime. However, it is more likely that the speaker intended to propose a toast to those people who helped him to free himself from cocaine and depressions, like Corinne Schwab. verse 3

It’s not the side-effects of the cocaine I’m thinking that it must be love

The third verse is significantly shorter than the other verses. It reveals the effects of Bowie’s immense drug abuse. The first line, “It’s not the side effects of the cocaine”, is ironic, because it obviously “is the side effects of the cocaine” that Bowie wrote those lyrics. In fact, Bowie was so full of cocaine during the song’s recordings that he could not remember most of them. Additionally, taking a lot of cocaine can evoke a feeling of falling in love, as the second line, “I’m thinking that it must be love”, points out. According to Springer (2012, online), relationships can start with a so-called “cocaine-rush” phase, “The cocaine-rush phase is an initial period of intense, highly pleasurable bonding based on the mutual fantasy that you and the other person are ideally matched and perfectly suited for each other.” chorus 3

It’s too late to be grateful It’s too late to be late again It’s too late to be hateful The European Canon is here

Interestingly, the third chorus differs from the first two choruses musically and lyrically. Whereas, the first two choruses are slow-paced, the song now shifts into a Teutonic marching beat (cf. Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide 2015: 45). It seems that everything is too late for the speaker, “It’s too late to be grateful, to be late again and to be hateful”. As noted by Pegg (2016: 267), “Bowie appears to be throwing himself on the mercy of temporal power […]” The speaker realizes that he is “lost in a circle” that he has to escape, in order to survive.

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The Thin White Duke has reached Europe, and the line, “The European Canon is here”, proposes that Bowie’s Berlin were about to come. Bowie left Los Angeles, where he went through his darkest days of cocaine abuse. verse 4

I must be only one in a million I won’t let the day pass without her

Since the fourth verse also deals with love, it is possible to connect it to the third verse. It all sounds rather cynical since the love is caused by drugs. verse 5

Should I believe that I’ve been stricken? Does my face show some kind of glow?

It was known that Bowie used a photographic device before and after he had taken cocaine. The device was a Kirlian Photographic Machine, which made it possible for him to gain more understanding about how cocaine affected his body. He compared his fingerprints before and after he had taken cocaine and used the resulting images for his album booklets. Therefore, it is possible that the line “Does my face show some kind of glow” refers to his experiences with this particular machine.20

Undoubtedly, it is unbelievable that the Thin White Duke was Bowie’s last fictional character. However, it was certainly more important for his fans that he overcame his drug addiction and, thus, was able to delight them with more great songs and albums.

20 According to Greg (n.d., online), “Many in the New Age community, especially those into alternative health and bio-energy fields, believed that Kirlian photography was imaging the ‘aura’ of objects, and might be useful for diagnosing illnesses or other pathologies of the body energy (and/or soul).” Actually, Bowie was not the only rock icon who used, and was fascinated by, Kirlian photography. “the cover of ex-Beatle ’s 1973 album Living in the Material World featured a Kirlian photograph of Harrison’s hand holding a Hindu medallion.” (Greg, n.d., online) 63

8. Conclusion

The emphasis of this thesis laid on David Bowie’s changing personas living in different worlds. These fictional characters were explained and analyzed in selected songs. In order to understand Bowie’s motivations for creating these characters, it is indispensable to know facts about his life. In order to understand the astronaut Major Tom and the alien Ziggy Stardust, it is important to understand Bowie’s affinity with outer space. The Thin White Duke was the result of Bowie’s intense drug abuse. Additionally, Aladdin Sane and Halloween Jack are characters that Bowie needed in order to distance himself from Ziggy Stardust.

Since Bowie’s embodiments of his personas changed very often, people might describe him as the chameleon of rock and . It is worthy of mention that he never wanted to perform his songs on stage by himself, “I never wanted to appear as myself on stage ever at any time […]. So I, as I did writing character form, I wanted to produce those characters on stage, which is something I did quite successfully at a time, I think.” (ThamesTV 2016, online)

In an interview with Mavis Nicholson, from 1979 for the television program Afternoon Plus, Bowie explained, “The lie of the rock performer is exactly the same on stage as he is off stage, […] so I thought well take it to stage further and completely separate the personalities, the person behind it all who’s writing it and creating it, and the one out front who does the interviews, and does the shows, and so I created the characters and put them on stage […]” (ThamesTV 2016, online)

Somehow it seemed that Bowie tried to overcome his shyness by embodying his characters. It is unbelievable that the man, who confidently performed on stage, was, in reality, a very shy person. Certainly, he would have never allowed someone like Aleister Crowley to influence him, when not being naïve, credulous and under the influence of cocaine. On the other hand, he must have had a strong will, because, otherwise, he would not have gotten over his drug abuse and his unhealthy diet of milk and peppers. Fortunately, he always had people in his life who loved him very much and, thus, supported him and his ideas.

Now, I would like to summarize the most important facts about Bowie’s famous fictional characters. Bowie’s first invention was the astronaut Major Tom, who appears in the songs “Space Oddity” and “Ashes to Ashes”. Major Tom was sent to outer space and decided to remain there. Hence, he broke contact with ground control and was lost in space forever.

With his next persona, Ziggy Stardust, Bowie achieved his breakthrough. Bowie explained in an interview with CBC News, in 1977, “Ziggy was for me a very simplistic thing. It was what 64 it seemed to be, an alien rock star and for performance value I dressed him and acted him out”. (CBC News: The National 2016, online) Not only does “Ziggy Stardust” tell the listener facts about the fictional character, but the whole album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars revolves around Ziggy’s life. The songs “Ziggy Stardust” and “Starman” tell the listener about Ziggy’s character, as well as the arrival of a Starman. Although Bowie achieved great success with his alter ego, he decided to leave him behind.

Some of Ziggy’s accessories, like his hair, remained untouched, whereas his face went through slight changes. Bowie added a lightning bolt across his face, which can be seen on the cover of Aladdin Sane. “Aladdin Sane” is a song about young Americans volunteering for war. The craziness of the young “lads” to leave their homes in order to fight is reflected in the pun “A lad insane”. Whereas Major Tom and Ziggy Stardust live in outer space, Bowie’s next character, Halloween Jack, resides in the fictional Hunger City. Halloween Jack, the “real cool cat” appears on the album Diamond Dogs, whose title track tells the listener about Hunger City. In this fictional city, Halloween Jack is the ruler of the Diamond Dogs - a punk street gang who controls the city.

Bowie’s last invention was the Thin White Duke, an androgynous, cocaine addicted character who appears in the song “Station To Station”. The song lasts for more than ten minutes and is Bowie’s longest studio track. Significant for the song is the sound of an accelerating train at the beginning. Additionally, numerous musical changes that can be heard throughout the whole song.

It is worthy of mention that Bowie’s various embodiments on stage appealed immensely to his audience. People responded to his performances by dressing up as the current character. However, sometimes it happened that Bowie was one step ahead of them. His audience was still dressed up as Ziggy Stardust, while Bowie took the stage as Aladdin Sane. Nevertheless, he was, and will always be, loved by his audience.

David Bowie died on 10 January 2016, two days after the release of his 25th studio album Blackstar. The news of his unexpected death came as a shock to everyone who has liked, or at least knew, the great musician. Only those who were really close to him, or part of his last project, knew about his fight with liver cancer, which he unfortunately lost. People will not only remember him for his outstanding music, but also for his unique performances on stage.

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9. Bibliography

1. Primary Texts 1.1 Lyrics The Little black songbook: David Bowie [2011]. Adrian Hopkins. (Ed.) London: Wise Productions. 2. Secondary Literature 2.1 Printed Sources Goddard, Simon (2013). Ziggyology: A Brief History Of Ziggy Stardust. London: Ebury Press. Jones, Dylan (2017). David Bowie: A Life. London: Preface Publishing. Pegg, Nicholas (2016). The complete David Bowie. [2000] London: Titan Books. Spitz, Marc (2009). Bowie: A Biography. New York: Crown Publishing Group. Time Inc (UK) (2015). Bowie: The Ultimate Music Guide. Mulvey, John (Ed.). Wrocław: Fulfillment. Wide, Steve (2016). Bowie A to Z: The Life of an Icon from Aladdin sane to Ziggy Stardust. Melbourne: Smith Street books. 2.2 Electronic Sources 2.2.1 Articles A&E Television Networks (2014, July 28). “ Biography”. The Biography.com website. [Online]. https://www.biography.com/people/jimmy-page-9542555 [2018, May 14]. Bebergal, Peter (2014, December 15). “Season of the Witch”. Huffpost. [Online]. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-bebergal/a-love-letter-to-popular- _b_5991710.html [2018, May 6]. Berger, Michael (2010, March 18). “TOTALITARIAN KITSCH”. The Rumpus. [Online]. http://therumpus.net/2010/03/totalitarian-kitsch/ [2018, May 7]. Blake, Mark (2013, November 18). “The Who-Tommy”. Mojo. [Online]. https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/8933/tommy [2018, April 18]. Brown Hunt, Katrina (2014, October 9). “Need Some Alone Time? Check Out America’s Coolest Ghost Towns”. Smithsonian. [Online]. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/americas-coolest-ghost-towns-180952954/ [2018, June 5]. Cain, Fraser (2015, February 17). “Are astronauts really weightless?”. phys.org. [Online]. https://phys.org/news/2015-02-astronauts-weightless.html [2018, April 5].

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Copetas, Craig (1974, February 28). “Beat Godfather Meets Glitter Mainman: William Burroughs Interviews David Bowie”. Rolling Stone [Online]. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/beat-godfather-meets-glitter-mainman- 19740228 [2018, May 22]. Daily Mail Reporter (2013, July 31). “Sold for an eye-watering amount! Unusual brooch designed by Salvador Dali fetches £ 96,000 at auction”. Mail Online. [Online]. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2381685/Salvador-Dali-brooch-The-Eye-Time-sells- eye-watering-auction.html [2018, May 6]. Dolezal, Vlad (2012, May 2). “The First and Second Darts of Suffering”. Alive With Passion!. [Online]. http://vladdolezal.com/blog/2012/first-and-second-darts-of-suffering/ [2018, May 14]. Gallucci, Michael (n.d.). “45 years ago: David Bowie returns, Ziggy-like, for Aladdin sane”. ultimateclassicrock. [Online]. http://ultimateclassicrock.com/david-bowie-aladdin-sane- album/ [2018, April 22]. Gilmore, Mikal (2012, January 18). “Cover Story Excerpt: David Bowie”. RollingStone. [Online]. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/cover-story-excerpt-david-bowie- 20120118 [2018, April 26]. Gilmore, Mikal (2012, February 2). “David Bowie: How Ziggy Stardust Fell to Earth”. RollingStone. [Online]. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/how-ziggy- stardust-fell-to-earth-20120202 [2018, April 10]. Gormly, Kellie B. (2018, January 31). “Why Do Cats Lick People”. catster. [Online]. http://www.catster.com/cat-behavior/why-do-cats-groom-humans [2018, April 17]. Graham, Ben (2016, January 11). “Exploring Notions Of Decadence: Bowie’s Station to Station, 35 Years On”. The Quietus. [Online]. http://thequietus.com/articles/05047- david-bowie-station-to-station-review-anniversary [2018, May 15]. Greg (n.d.). “David Bowie used Kirlian Photography to check his aura before and after taking cocaine”. The Daily Grail. [Online]. https://www.dailygrail.com/2017/10/david-bowie- used-kirlian-photography-to-check-his-aura-before-and-after-taking-cocaine/ [2018, May 15]. Greene, Andy (2012, November 22). “Flashback: Ziggy Stardust Commits ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’ at Final Gig”. RollingStone. [Online]. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/flashback-ziggy-stardust-commits-rock- and-roll-suicide-at-final-gig-20121122 [2018, April 10]. Haas, Saumya Arya (2011, May 25). “What is Voodoo? Understanding a Misunderstood Religion”. Huffpost. [Online]. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/saumya-arya-haas/what- is-vodou_b_827947.html [2018, April 17]. History.com Staff (2009). “History of Jack O’Lantern”. History.com. [Online]. https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/jack-olantern-history# [2018, May 23]. Jones, Rob (2016, February 8). “16 David Bowie Personas That Made Him Immortal”. The Delete Bin. [Online]. https://thedeletebin.com/2016/02/08/16-david-bowie-personas- that-make-him-immortal/ [2018, April 28]. 67

Koenig, Peter-Robert (2017). “The Laughing Gnostic- David Bowie and the Occult”. The Ordo Templi Orientis Phenomenon. [Online]. www.parareligion.ch/bowie.htm [2018, May 14]. Light, Alan (2016, June 16). “’Ziggy Stardust’: How Bowie Created the Alter Ego That Changed Rock”. RollingStone. [Online]. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/ziggy-stardust-how-bowie-created-the- alter-ego-that-changed-rock-20160616 [2018, April 17]. Light, Alan (2017, January 23). “How David Bowie Brought Thin White Duke to Life on ‘Station to Station’”. RollingStone. [Online]. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/inside-david-bowies-station-to-station- w462438 [2018, May 7]. Lloyd, Peter Alan (n.d.). “David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes and THAT video”. BombedOutPunk. [Online]. http://www.bombedoutpunk.com/history/music-from-1980- david-bowies-ashes-to-ashes-and-that-video/ [2018, April 8]. Louise, Maryam (2017, May 17). “How David Bowie’s Family’s Mental Health Made Him Creative: Schizophrenia Confirmed As Genetic, Linked To Creative Siblings”. inquisitr. [Online]. https://www.inquisitr.com/3105853/how-david-bowies-familys-mental-health- made-him-creative-schizophrenia-confirmed-as-genetic-linked-to-creative-siblings/ [2018, May 22]. Malcolm, Derek (1999, April 15). “Tod Browning: Freaks”. . [Online]. https://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/apr/15/derekmalcolmscenturyoffilm.derekmalc olm [2018, May 2]. Messenger, Stephen (2015, July 7). “How Newton’s Spunky Dog Nearly Robbed Us Of The Laws Of Gravity”. thedodo. [Online]. https://www.thedodo.com/isaac-newtons-dog- gravity-1236801516.html [2018, May 4]. Oppenheim, Maja (2016, January 11). “David Bowie: A journey through the iconic singer’s ever changing personas”. Independent. [Online]. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/remembering-david-bowie-a-journey- through-the-iconic-singers-ever-changing-personas-a6805651.html#gallery [2018, May 22]. Rosen, Jody (2016, January 14). “David Bowie as Starman: His Crucial Obsession With Space”. billboard. [Online]. https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/magazine- feature/6843057/david-bowie-space-obsession [2018, May 22]. Segal, Eliezer (1995). “The Ten Sefirot of the Kabbalah”. Eliezer Segal’s Homepage. [Online]. http://people.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Sefirot/Sefirot.html [2018, May 8]. Sheffield, Rob (2016, April 13). “How America Inspired David Bowie to Kill Ziggy Stardust With ‘Aladdin Sane’”. RollingStone. [Online]. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-america-inspired-david-bowie-to-kill- ziggy-stardust-with-aladdin-sane-20160413 [2018, April 22].

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Springer, Shauna H (2012, August 4). “Falling in Love is Like Smoking Crack Cocaine”. Psychology Today. [Online]. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-joint- adventures-well-educated-couples/201208/falling-in-love-is-smoking-crack-cocaine [2018, May 15]. Srinivasan, Meenakshi (2015, May 12). “BANK OF THE MANHATTAN COMPANY BUILDING BECOMES A LANDMARK”. NEW YORK CITY LANDMARKS PRESERVATION COMMISSION. [Online]. www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/15-02_Queens_Clock_Tower.pdf [2018, May 4]. Thacker, Toby (2014, August 29). “Your country needs you’: why did so many volunteer in 1914”. The Conversation. [Online]. https://theconversation.com/your-country-needs- you-why-did-so-many-volunteer-in-1914-30443 [2018, April 26]. Thill, Scott (2010, September 28). “David Bowie, Earth’s Perpetual Persona Machine”. Wired. [Online]. https://www.wired.com/2010/09/david-bowie/ [2018, May 22]. Wilford, John Noble (1998, October 1). “After 4 Decades, the Agency of the Future Is Left to Look Back”. on the Web. [Online]. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/nasa/100198sci- nasa-wilford.html [2018, April 8]. Woods, Andrew (2016, June 24). “Who was the real Tarzan?”. The Telegraph. [Online]. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/legend-of-tarzan/who-was-the-real-tarzan/ [2018, May 6]. Yuki (2016, March 29). “Japan’s Theatrical Gems: Kabuki and Noh”. matcha tea. [Online]. https://matcha-tea.com/lifestyle/japans-theatrical-gems-kabuki-and-noh# [2018, April 22]. 2.2.2 Documentaries and Youtube videos Byron, Alan and Mark Sloper (Producer) Anderson, Sonja (Director) (2016). Bowie: The Man who changed the world. [Motion picture] Vision films. CBC News: The National (2016, January 11). David Bowie Explains Ziggy Stardust. [Youtube Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81H5PT7ANjc&t=381s [2018, June 10]. NevilleMatheson71 (2010, March 2). Charlton Heston - Omega Man - Mannequin flirt. [Youtube Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrAqpLXFbv8 [2018, May 3]. onmediamusic (2012, June 14). Sound and Vision. [Youtube Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlmuuQBM4Gs [2018, June 10]. ThamesTV (2016, January 11). David Bowie interview / Afternoon plus / 1979. [Youtube Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwTFW4kfHl4 [2018, May 21]. 2.2.3 Wikipedia Articles and Online Reference Works “1972 in British television” (n.d.). Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. [Online]. Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_in_British_television [2018, April 20].

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10. Appendix: Lyrics

1. “Space Oddity”

Ground Control to Major Tom, Intro Ground Control to Major Tom, Take you protein pills and put your helmet on. Ground Control to Major Tom, Commencing countdown, engines on. Check ignition and may God’s love be with you.

This is Ground Control to Major Tom, Verse 1 You’ve really made the grade. And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear. Now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare.

“This is Major Tom to Ground Control, Verse 2 I’m stepping through the door. And I’m floating in a most peculiar way, And the stars look very different today.”

“For here am I sitting in a tin can, Chorus 1 Far above the world. Planet Earth is blue, And there’s nothing I can do.”

“Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles, Verse 3 I’m feeling very still. And I think my spaceship knows which way to go. Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows.”

Ground Control to Major Tom, Verse 4 I’m feeling very still. And I think my spaceship knows which way to go. Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows.”

“Here am I floating round my tin can, Chorus 2 Far above the Moon. Planet Earth is blue, And there’s nothing I can do.”

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2. “Ashes to Ashes”

Do you remember a guy that’s been Verse 1 In such an early song? I’ve heard a rumour from Ground Control, Oh no, don’t say it’s true. They got a message from the Action Man: “I’m happy, hope you’re happy too. I’ve loved all I’ve needed love Sordid details following.”

The shrieking of nothing is killing Verse 2 Just pictures of Jap girls in synthesis and I Ain’t got no money and I ain’t got no hair But I’m hoping to kick but the planet it’s glowing.

Ashes to ashes, funk to funky, Chorus 1 We know Major Tom’s a junkie Strung out in heaven’s high Hitting an all-time low.

Time and again I tell myself Verse 3 I’ll stay clean tonight, But the little green wheels Are following me, Oh no, not again. I’m stuck with a valuable friend: “I’m happy, hope you’re happy too?” One flash of light but no smoking pistol.

I’ve never done good things, Verse 4 I’ve never done bad things, I never did anything out of the blue, who-o-oh. Want an axe to break the ice, Wanna come down right now.

Chorus 2 (as Chorus 1)

My mama said to get things done Coda You’d better not mess with Major Tom. My mama said to get things done You’d better not mess with Major Tom. My mama said to get things done You’d better not mess with Major Tom. My mama said to get things done You’d better not mess with Major Tom.

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3. “Ziggy Stardust”

Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly Verse 1 And the spiders from Mars. He played it left hand but made it too far, Became the special man, then we were Ziggy’s band.

Ziggy really sang, screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo Verse 2 Like some cat from Japan, He could lick’em by smiling, he could leave‘em to hang, They came on so loaded man, well-hung and snow-white tan.

So where were the Spiders Chorus 1 While the fly tried to break our balls? Just the beer light to guide us, So we bitched about his fans and should we crush his sweet hands?

Ziggy played for time, jiving us that we were voodoo. Verse 3 The kids were just crass, He was the nazz with God-given ass. He took it all too far but boy could he play guitar.

Making love with his ego, Chorus 2 Ziggy sucked up into his mind. Like a leper messiah When the kids had killed the man I had to break up the band.

Ziggy played guitar Coda

4. “Starman”

Didn’t know what time it was, Verse 1 The lights were low-ow-ow. I lean back on my radio-o-o, Some cat was laying down some rock ‘n’ roll, “Lotta soul.” he said.

Then the loud sound did seem to fa-a-ade Verse 2 Came back like a slow voice on a wave of pha-a-ase That weren’t no D.J. that was hazy cosmic jive.

There’s a starman waiting in the sky Chorus 1 He’d like to come and meet us But he thinks he’d blow our minds. There’s a starman waiting in the sky He’s told us not to blow it ‘Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile, He told me: “Let the children lose it, let the children use it, Let all the children boogie.”

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Well I had to phone someone so I picked on you-ou-ou, Verse 3 Hey that’s far out! so you heard him too-oo-oo. Switch on the TV we may pick him up on Channel 2.

Look out your window I can see his li-i-ight, Verse 4 If we can sparkle he may land toni-i-ight, Don’t tell your papa or he’ll get us locked up in fright.

Chorus 2 (as Chorus 1)

Starman waiting in the sky Chorus 3 He’d like to come and meet us But he thinks he’s blow our minds. There’s a starman waiting in the sky He’s told us not to blow it ‘Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile, He told me: “Let the children lose it, let the children use it, Let all the children boogie.”

5. “Aladdin sane”

Watching him dash away, swinging an old bouquet – dead roses, Verse 1 Sake and strange divine, Uh-h-h-uh-h-uh, you’ll make it.

Passionate bright young things, takes him away to war, don’t fake it Verse 2 Saddening glissando strings Uh-h-h-uh-h-uh, you’ll make it.

Who will love Aladdin sane? Chorus 1 Battle cries and champagne just in time for sunrise. Who will love Aladdin sane?

Motor sensational, Paris or maybe hell, I’m waiting. Verse 3 Clutches of sad remains Waits for Aladdin Sane, you’ll make it.

Who will love Aladdin Sane? Chorus 2 Millions weep a fountain, just in case of sunrise. Who will love Aladdin Sane, Will love Aladdin Sane, Will love Aladdin Sane?

Chorus 3 (as Chorus 2)

They say the lights are oh so bright on Broadway Outro

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6. “Diamond Dogs”

As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent Verse 1 You asked for the latest party, With you silicone hump and your ten inch stump: Dressed like a priest you was, To Browning’s freak you was.

Crawling down the alley on your hands and knee, Verse 2 I’m sure you’re not protected, for it’s plain to see. The Diamond Dogs are poachers and they hide behind trees, Hunt you to the ground they will, mannequins with kill appeal.

(Will they come?) I’ll keep a friend serene. Pre-chorus 1 (Will they come?) Oh baby, come unto me. (Will they come?) Well, she’s come, been and gone.

Come out of the garden, baby, Chorus 1 You’ll catch your death in the fog. Young girl, they call them the Diamond Dogs, Young girl, they call them the Diamond Dogs.

Now Halloween Jack is a real cool cat Verse 3 And he lives on top of Manhattan Chase, The elevator’s broke, so he slides down a rope Onto the street below, oh Tarzie, go man go!

Meet his little hussy with his ghost town approach, Verse 4 Her face is sans feature, but she wears a Dalo brooch. Sweetly reminiscent, something mother used to bake, Wrecked up and paralyzed, Diamond Dogs are sable-ized.

Pre-chorus 2 (as Pre-chorus 1)

Chorus 2 (as Chorus 1)

In the year of the scavenger, the season of the bitch Verse 5 Sashay on the boardwalk, scurry to the ditch. Just another future song, lonely little kitsch. (There’s gonna be sorrow,) try and wake up tomorrow.

Pre-chorus 3 (as Pre-chorus 1)

Chorus 3 (as Chorus 1)

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Ooh-ooh-ooh, call them the Diamond Dogs, Coda Ooh-ooh-ooh, call them the Diamond Dogs, Bow-wow, woof woof, bow-wow-wow Call them the Diamond Dogs. Dogs! Call them the Diamond Dogs, call them, call them. Call them the Diamond Dogs, call them, call them, ooh-ooh. Call them the Diamond Dogs, keep cool. Diamond Dogs rule, O.K.

7. “Station to Station”

The re-turn of the Thin White Duke, Bridge 1 Throwing darts in lovers’ eyes.

Here are we one magical moment, Verse 1 Such is the stuff from where dreams are woven. Bending sound, Dredging the ocean lost in my circle. Here am I, Flashing no colour, tall in this room overlooking the ocean. Here are we, One magical movement from Kether to Malkuth. There are you, Drive like a demon from station to station.

The re – turn of the Thin White Duke, Bridge 2 Throwing darts in lovers’eyes. The re – turn of the Thin White Duke, Making sure white stains.

Once there were mountains on mountains Verse 2 And once there were sunbirds to soar with And once I could never be down. Got to keep searching and searching And oh, what will I be believing And who will connect me with love? Wonder who, wonder who, wonder when? Have you sought fortune e – vasive and shy? Drink to the men who pro – tect you and I. Drink, drink, drain your glass, raise your glass high.

It’s not the side – effects of the cocaine, Chorus 1 I’m thinking that it must be love. It’s too late to be grateful, It’s too late to be late again. It’s too late to be hateful, The European cannon is here.

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I must be only one in a million, Chorus 2 I won’t let the day pass with – out her. It’s too late to be grateful, It’s too late to be late again. It’s too late to be hateful, The European cannon is here.

Should I believe that I’ve been stricken? Chorus 3 Does my face show some kind of glow? It’s too late to be grateful, It’s too late to be late again. It’s too late to be hateful, The European cannon is here, yes it’s here.

It’s too late, it’s too late, Chorus 4 It’s too late, it’s too late, It’s too late, The European cannon is here.

Chorus 5 (as Chorus 1)

Chorus 6 (as Chorus 2)

Chorus 7 (as Chorus 3)

Chorus 8 (as Chorus 4)

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