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

***

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" )

***

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

***

_________________

Temudjin Borkchu

¤

IGGY

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temudjin borkchu - Post subject: Iggy

 


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Original Study by BRADLEY BANKS

Bradley Banks is a Musician and Engineer, living an working in NYC.


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Mixture Flavour by XIRON XIN

Xiron Xin is Himself and None of Himself Nowhere.


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Roq and rol?

...look familiar?

The pose that Iggy Pop struck for the cover of "The Idiot" is mimicked from the expressionist painter Erich Heckel's work: Roquairol. The album cover photo was taken by Andy Kent, the bass player for "You am I".

Erich Heckel was a German painter and printmaker, and a founding member of Die Brücke (translated as "The Bridge") group which existed from 1905 to 1913. 

Heckel and others members of Die Brücke aimed to make a "bridge" between traditional neo-romantic German painting and modern expressionist painting.

The cover pose of "The Idiot" gives us further insight into the artistic work inside.

"The Idiot" as a work of Expressionism

Expressionism is an artistic movement or classification characterized by willful distortion of reality for emotional effect. 

In 2oo1, Bowie said of Expressionism, "It was an artform that mirrored life not by event but by mood. And that is where I felt my work was going".

One reality that is distorted for emotional effect on "The Idiot" is ambiance. 

The human ear is a clever device which can discern sound origin, motion, and physical volume. If you were to clap your hands in your bedroom and then clap your hands in a gymnasium, listening carefully each time, your ears would tell you most of the basic information your eyes do. You would hear the room size, wall hardness and whether or not there was something soft and absorptive (a bed) present. 

Most listeners hear ambiance on a sound recording on an unconscious level. Ambiance defines the acoustic space where the musicians performed; they have to exist somewhere. Ambiance on recordings is created during tracking and / or mixing. It can be captured by the microphones in the room or added to / created with an effect. 

Bowie (as producer) and the engineers manipulated this facet of reality to give the listener feelings of dread, coldness, desolation and unconsciously force the listener to fathom the world in which these performers existed.

Ambiance is most noticeable on impulse sounds, like the aforementioned hand clap. Impulse sounds excite the room briefly and end quickly, leaving the listener hearing only the room's response. (The Impulse response is used to characterize "systems" other than rooms.) Drums are terrific impulse sources and offer the best way to hear the ambiance on a recording. 

"Nightclubbing" is the track with the most obvious example of distorted ambiance.

A second distortion of reality used within "The Idiot" is dissonance. 

Dissonance is present most overtly on "Mass Production" and "Funtime" and is used to make the listener feel that something is going wrong, but since the "mistakes" remained on the record, the listener wonders what kind of musician would purposely do this? 

Who is in control here?

The third distortion of reality present on "The Idiot" is literally distortion; the distortion on the piano instrument. Normally, you could not pass distortion off as an indicator of expressionism, but since the piano is such a foundational instrument, its sound known to all, distorting it adds to the feeling that something is not quite right.

 

"The Idiot" as a Bridge

Wikipedia research on Erich Heckel's Die Brücke finds the following: "Die Brücke aimed to eschew the prevalent traditional academic style and find a new mode of artistic expression, which would form a bridge (hence the name) between the past and the present. They responded both to past artists ... as well as contemporary international avant-garde movements.

The group developed a common style based on vivid color, emotional tension, violent imagery, and an influence from primitivism. "

Bowie said, "When I was in Berlin, I'd find old woodblock prints from the Brücke school, in small shops, at unbelievable prices, and to buy like that was wonderful."

It seems as if "The Idiot" would be quite at home among the works of Die Brücke. Iggy's work with the Stooges can be described as primitive. 

Iggy's many whoops, screams and hollers, his violent stage antics and the band's musical limitations drove their knuckle-dragging sound. 

For any Iggy Pop / Stooges fan in 1977, "The Idiot" was a massive departure. Bowie and Iggy's vision for "The Idiot" was to bridge Iggy's primal past to the 1977 present (and future) where bands like Kraftwerk and NEU! were creating mechanical and electrical music.

As we have seen and will continue to see, "The Idiot" draws from a multitude of varied inspirations. 

Of "Funtime", Iggy said, "But [Bowie] had good ideas. The best example I can give you was when I was working on the lyrics to 'Funtime' and he said, 'Yeah, the words are good. But don't sing it like a rock guy. Sing it like Mae West.  Also, it was a little bit gay. So, the vocals there became even more menacing as a result of that suggestion."

The opening gives us some eerie ambient feedback, a cough and giggling. The cough betrays what could be the ambiance processing on the drums or other instrument(s). Almost immediately, the listener is greeted by a zombie-like, dissonant chorus: "All aboard for funtime". Watching and listening to the above live version of "Funtime" illuminates a stark difference between the live version and the album version. We notice that on the album version, this chorus is sung in monotone while the live version has a melody.

The guitar on the first bridge starts with an off-note, but its kept as it is part of the dissonant mood. During the bridges where the singers are whipping themselves into a frenzy, singing, "Ooooo, we're having fun!" and "whhhoooooooooh c'mon!" the listener feels helpless as if he/she is strapped into some kind of horror show carousel that is careening out of control. This final part brings many screams swelling with a slow rise and fast decay which intensifies this wild, spinning effect.

This out of control feeling and ever present dissonance on this song makes the listener feel that something very UN-fun is actually happening and this is the main thrust of "Funtime". The juxtaposition of "Fun" and "Funtime" with the aggressive subject matter, monster references, leering sexual content and terrifying soundscape, leaves the listener not with feelings of irony but unease.

To the performers, with their depraved nervous systems, this song is all about genuine "funtime" with no irony intended. Its a glimpse into a world you could never join nor hope to understand.

...

IGGY IS IGGY.

...

_________________

Temudjin Borkchu

__________________________________________________:

hayseed -  Post subject: Re: Iggy

da asta nu-i silviu gherman?

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temudjin borkchu - Post subject: Re: Iggy

Nu, nu'i

http://www.audiosparx.com/BradleyBanks

Bradley Banks

Home: Brooklyn, New York USA 

Bradley Banks is a multi-instrumentalist who composes, performs and records all elements of his music. His songs contain organic and electronic instrumentation and moods ranging from frantic and upbeat to somber, pensive and melancholy. His eclectic music, reflects his vast experience from playing violin and percussion in orchestras to performing in seedy NYC punk rock venues. Bradley strives to create music that is sonically unique often with mangled, distorted sounds and unconventionally coupled instrumentation to make your project STAND OUT!

Bradley Banks has been playing music for the majority of his life, 

and currently plays bass for various New York City bands. 

He has performed in a wide range of settings from playing violin 

and percussion in orchestras to singing and playing in clubs 

all around New York City.

Bradley's studio is filled with a variety of instruments and both 

new and vintage (circa 1950s) pieces of analog recording gear. 

Most of the microphone pre-amps, microphones and compressors 

he uses were built, designed or refurbished by Bradley, himself. 

He uses many homemade distortion pedals and modified 

compressors to achieve a unique sonic palette.

... and ... foremost ...

http://idiotlust.blogspot.com/

Thanks for everyone's posts and emails. I've finally gotten in touch with Laurent Thibault! He's been very gracious and is providing lots of details. I'm going to go back through and make additions in BOLD text. Take a look at the "Sister Midnight" post, for starters.

Update:

I just finished a 1.5 week tour of France which was great. 

We played some great shows including the Printemps de Bourges. 

Laurent Thibault kindly met me and we had some great time hanging 

out and chatting together about "The Idiot" recording and his music career.

_________________

Temudjin Borkchu

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