BEAUTY: Digital Collage--Maia Valenzuela

Apropos of my David Bowie posting yesterday, here, where an AI created images for each line of his iconic "Space Oddity" song, artist Maia Valenzuela has created a digital collage for each track of every album Bowie ever recorded! Some of my favorites she created are from "Low," his first album in a trio that has become known as The Berlin Trilogy. If you know the album, you will see she captured a sense of each song. And if you don't know the album, treat yourself and find a way to listen to the entire thing. Released in 1977, smack in the middle of the disco and punk eras, this avant-garde-ambient-electronic-abstract collection which had nothing to do with any other music of the time stumped even Bowie fans. Produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti, with flashes of typical genius from Brian Eno, previously here, it sounds nothing like anything else Bowie created up to that point, and indeed unlike almost anything else that was being recorded by anyone else at the time. The musical and lyrical offerings on "Low" are minimal but pack quite a punch.

Speed Of Life

Breaking Glass

What In The World

Sound And Vision

Always Crashing In The Same Car

Be My Wife

A New Career In A New Town

Warszawa

Art Decade

Weeping Wall

Subterraneans

http://www.bowieisbowie.com/

"Low" by Chet Faker

Chet Faker is the nom de musique of one Nick Murphy. He abandoned the name a few years ago and went back to recording music under his own name but has now apparently made his peace with his Chet Faker past, as he has released a slinky, cerebral new song, "Low," under the Chet Faker moniker once again.

"Just because I feel low right now, it doesn't mean all that I've got has run out."

https://loverepri.se/

The Poetry of Rock n' Roll: "Always Crashing In The Same Car," "Heroes," and "Repetition"

To observe National Poetry Month, once a week I will be featuring lyrics of rock n' roll or pop songs that also double as exquisite poetry.

And seeing as we just lost one of the greats of contemporary music, here are lyrics to three different songs by David Bowie. His impact on not only the music world but the worlds of art, fashion, film, and literature is immeasurable.

I have chosen to share three songs, one each from his legendary Berlin Trilogy. This first song was recorded for his phenomenal 1977 release "Low" which, as I wrote in a past post (here), emerged smack in the middle of the disco and punk eras. Along came this avant-garde-ambient-electronic-abstract collection which had nothing to do with any other music of the time, and which stumped even Bowie fans. Unlike past Bowie songs, the lyrical offerings on "Low" were minimal but packed quite a punch. Here, our narrator is caught in a loop of bad decisions, as if sabotaging his own life...

Always Crashing In The Same Car

Every chance, every chance that I take
I take it on the road
Those kilometers and the red lights
I was always looking left and right

Oh, but I'm always crashing in the same car

Jasmine, I saw you peeping
As I pushed my foot down to the floor
I was going round and round the hotel garage
Must have been touching close to 94

Oh, but I'm always crashing in the same car

This next song is familiar to all of us, I am sure, since it became one of Bowie's most identifiable and iconic songs. The quotation marks around the title are meant to imply irony but the sentiment of the lyrics is anything but, with its imagery of love surviving under a crushing political regime. It came from the 1977 release "Heroes."

"Heroes"

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be heroes, just for one day

And you, you can be mean
And I, I'll drink all the time
'Cause we're lovers and that is a fact
Yes, we're lovers and that is that

Though nothing will keep us together
We could steal time, just for one day
We can be heroes forever and ever
What d'ya say?

I, I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim
Though nothing, nothing will keep us together
We can beat them forever and ever
Oh we can be heroes, just for one day

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can be heroes just for one day
We can be us, just for one day

I, I can remember
Standing by the wall
And the guns shot above our heads
And we kissed as though nothing could fall
And the shame was on the other side
Oh, we can beat them, forever and ever
Then we could be heroes, just for one day

We can be heroes
We can be heroes
We can be heroes
Just for one day
We can be heroes

We're nothing, and nothing will help us
Maybe we're lying, then you better not stay
But we could be safer, just for one day

And here are the lyrics to a song from 1979's "Lodger," perhaps the most accessible release of the Berlin Trilogy, musically speaking. In this song about domestic violence, Bowie eschews the usual sentimentalities of the subject and instead chooses to present a detached, chilling, psychological study.

Repetition

Johnny is a man
And he's bigger than you
But his overheads are high
And he looks straight through when you ask him how the kids are

He'll get home around seven
'Cuz the Chevy's really old
And he could have had a Cadillac
If the school had taught him right

And he could have married Anne with the blue silk blouse
(He could have married Anne with the blue silk blouse)

And the food is on the table
But the food is cold

(Don't hit her)

"Can't you even cook?
What's the good of me working when you can't damn cook?"

Well, Johnny is a man and he's bigger than her
I guess the bruises won't show if she wears long sleeves
But the space in her eyes shows through

R.I.P David Bowie. We miss you.

http://www.davidbowie.com/

Currently listening to...

...David Bowie's instrumental electronic song "All Saints" from his groundbreaking album "Low."

As the first third of the Berlin Trilogy, "Low" (produced by Bowie and Tony Visconti, with flashes of typical genius from Brian Eno, previously here) was released in 1977, smack in the middle of the disco era. It was an avant-garde, ambient, electronic, and abstract collection of music that stumped even Bowie fans at the time. Upon its re-release on CD, additional bonus material included this track that did not make it to the original release. It actually sounds like it got reworked and became "V-2 Schneider" for his following release, "Heroes."

http://davidbowie.com/