We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…….
I recently pulled this LP out and listened to it all the way through for the first time in decades. I had forgotten how interesting it was at the time of release in 1971…and the fact that it didnt sell well. Bowie would break out the next year with Ziggy Stardust and the members of the “Spiders From Mars” play on this record as well. Even the song “Changes” which we have all heard a million times, flopped in it’s initial release and didn’t become a hit until years later as the B side of a re-release of Space Oddity.
But this album is important despite not succeeding commercially. It began Bowie’s search for identity that would lead him through many “Changes” over his years in the music biz. And it also gave the marginalized folks who knew they were different someone to rally around.
Even at this point, Bowie knows he’s not a “regular” guy. Listen to the song “Kooks”, a song written for his young son. It’s a love song and a warning…that his life is not going to be normal.
The album is full of coolness. Rick Wakeman plays piano throughout just before leaving the Strawbs and joining Yes. And he plays on the piano that McCartney used for Hey Jude and Queen would use for Bohemian Rhapsody. The LP has songs written for three of Bowie’s “idols”, Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground and Bob Dylan…although “Song For Bob Dylan” is more of a question as to where the “voice of a generation had gone”. “Queen Bitch”, the Velvet Underground tribute, is a gem though.
My two faves on the LP are “Oh, You Pretty Things” and “Life On Mars” The first one looks at various philosophical topics ranging from the occultist ramblings of Alistair Crowley and the writings of Nietzsche, framed in a song about those who are different trying to make their way in society. The funny thing is that Bowie originally gave the song to former Herman’s Hermits front man Peter Noone to record and release as his first solo record. Bowie even played piano on this. You wonder if Noone knew what he was singing about…compare the two…
And here is a live version recorded for the great British TV show “The Old Grey Whistle Test”
And “Life On Mars” is another song that cloaks itself in mystery. I’ve read that Bowie considered it a send-up of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” and the “Mars” of title had nothing to do with the 1972 Lp that was coming…but from the conversation on-going at the time of a space race to the Red Planet between the East and West.
Bowie recorded the vocals for “Life On Mars” in one take…and it was also Mick Ronson’s first try at a string arrangment…it works spendidly.
Here is a video of the song made a couple of years later
Other highlights include “Quicksand” in which Bowie delivers lyrics that name-check Churchill, Himmler, Crowley and Nietzsche again. He later called this a “precursor” to his muisc on “Low” which, for me, was never an easy listen.
There are some misses… “Fill Your Heart”, I’m looking at you…but for the most part this is an excellent introduction to an artist who would be part of our musical landscape for decades and for the next few years would lead many sheltered teenagers on journeys of self-discovery.
Bowie is one of those artists where it was always about more than just the music…but the music could stand on its own too.
 
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