THO

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Triple Horn Oblivion

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Lyrics

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Oh You Pretty Things

* written by David Bowie in 1971 for the album Hunky Dory *

Thematically, the song has been seen as reflecting the influence of occultist Aleister Crowley and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, heralding "the impending obsolescence of the human race in favour of an alliance between arriving aliens and the youth of the present society".

~~~

Wake up you sleepy head

Put on some clothes, shake up your bed

Put another log on the fire for me

I've made some breakfast and coffee

I look out my window what do I see

A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me

All the nightmares came today

And it looks as though they're here to stay

What are we coming to

No room for me, no fun for you

I think about a world to come

Where the books were found by the Golden ones

Written in pain, written in awe

By a puzzled man who questioned

What we came here for

All the strangers came today

And it looks as though they're here to stay

Oh You Pretty Things (Oh You Pretty Things)

Don't you know you're driving your

Mamas and Papas insane

Oh You Pretty Things (Oh You Pretty Things)

Don't you know you're driving your

Mamas and Papas insane

Let me make it plain

You gotta make way for the Homo Superior

Look at your children

See their faces in golden rays

Don't kid yourself they belong to you

They're the start of a coming race

The earth is a bitch

We've finished our news

Homo Sapiens have outgrown their use

All the strangers came today

And it looks as though they're here to stay

Oh You Pretty Things (Oh You Pretty Things)

Don't you know you're driving your

Mamas and Papas insane

Oh You Pretty Things (Oh You Pretty Things)

Don't you know you're driving your

Mamas and Papas insane

Let me make it plain

You gotta make way for the Homo Superior

~~~

BBC show Johnny Walker Lunchtime Show on May 22, 1972

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Rock 'N' Roll Suicide

"Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" was originally released as the closing track on the album "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" in June 1972. It detailed Ziggy’s final collapse as an old, washed-up rock star and, as such, was also the closing number of the Ziggy Stardust live show

Bowie saw the song in terms of the French chanson tradition, while biographer David Buckley has described both "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" and the album's opening track "Five Years" as "more like avant-garde show songs than actual rock songs". 

Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine similarly found it to have "a grand sense of staged drama previously unheard of in rock & roll". Although Bowie has suggested Baudelaire as his source, the lyrics "Time takes a cigarette..." are somewhat similar to the poem "Chants Andalous" by Manuel Machado: "Life is a cigarette / Cinder, ash and fire / Some smoke it in a hurry / Others savour it".

The exhortation "Oh no, love, you're not alone" references the Jacques Brel song "You're Not Alone" ("Jef") that appeared in the musical "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris". Bowie covered Brel's "My Death" during some Ziggy Stardust live shows, 

and performed "Amsterdam" live on the BBC.

"Everybody... this has been one of the greatest tours of our lives. 

I would like to thank the band. I would like to thank our road crew. 

I would like to thank our lighting people. Of all of the shows on this 

tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest because... 

not only is it--not only is it the last show of the tour, but it's the 

last show that we'll ever do. Thank you."

~~~

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth

You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette

The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget

Ohhh how how how, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide

You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it

And the clocks waits so patiently on your song

You walk past a cafe but you don't eat when you've lived too long

Oh, no, no, no, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide

Chev brakes are snarling as you stumble across the road

But the day breaks instead so you hurry home

Don't let the sun blast your shadow

Don't let the milk float ride your mind

They're so natural - religiously unkind

Oh no love! you're not alone

You're watching yourself but you're too unfair

You got your head all tangled up but if I could only

make you care

Oh no love! you're not alone

No matter what or who you've been

No matter when or where you've seen

All the knives seem to lacerate your brain

I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain

You're not alone 

Just turn on with me and you're not alone 

Let's turn on with me and you're not alone (wonderful)

Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful (wonderful)

Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful (wonderful)

Oh gimme your hands.

~~~

3rd July 1973 at the Hammersmith Odeon, London.

( "David Bowie Is Alive and Well and Living Only In Theory" )

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Life on Mars?

"Life on Mars?" was first released in 1971 on the album Hunky Dory.

Neil McCormick of The Daily Telegraph commented on the song:

"A quite gloriously strange anthem, where the combination of stirring, yearning melody and vivid, poetic imagery manage a trick very particular to the art of the song: to be at once completely impenetrable and yet resonant with true personal meaning. You want to raise your voice and sing along, yet Bowie’s abstract cut-up 

lyrics force you to invest the song with something of yourself just to make sense of the experience. And, like all great songs, it's got a lovely tune."

In 1968 Bowie wrote the lyrics "Even a Fool Learns to Love", set 

to the music of a 1967 French song "Comme d'habitude", composed 

by Claude François and Jacques Revaux. Bowie's version was never released, but Paul Anka bought the rights to the original French version, and rewrote it into "My Way" made famous by Frank Sinatra in a 1969 recording on his album of the same name. The success of the Anka version prompted Bowie to write "Life on Mars?" as a parody of Sinatra's recording. In notes for a "Bowie compilation CD" that accompanied a June 2008 issue of The Mail on Sunday, Bowie described how he wrote the song:

"Workspace was a big empty room with a chaise longue; a bargain-price 

art nouveau screen ('William Morris,' so I told anyone who asked); a huge 

overflowing freestanding ashtray and a grand piano. Little else. I started 

working it out on the piano and had the whole lyric and melody finished by 

late afternoon."

~~~

It's a God-awful small affair

To the with the mousy hair

But her mummy is yelling "No"

And her daddy has told her to go

But her friend is nowhere to be seen

Now she walks through her sunken dream

To the seat with the clearest view

And she's hooked to the silver screen

But the film is a saddening bore

For she's lived it ten times or more

She could spit in the eyes of fools

As they ask her to focus on

Sailors fighting in the dance hall

Oh man! Look at those cavemen go

It's the freakiest show

Take a look at the Lawman

Beating up the wrong guy

Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know

He's in the best selling show

Is there life on Mars?

It's on America's tortured brow

That Mickey Mouse has brought up a cow

And now the workers have struck for fame

'Cos Lennon's on sale again

See the mice in their million hordes

From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads

Rule Britannia is out of bounds

To my Mother, my dog, and clowns

But the film is a saddening bore

'Cos I wrote it ten times or more

It's about to be writ again

As I ask you to focus on

Sailors fighting in the dance hall

Oh man! Look at those cavemen go

It's the freakiest show

Take a look at the Lawman

Beating up the wrong guy

Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know

He's in the best selling show...

Is there life on Mars?!?

~~~

 Promotional Vid shot backstage-Earls Court May-12 1973-Mick Rock

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Temudjin Borkchu

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