The Daily Bowie #59 - "Telling Lies"

I'm your future

I am tomorrow

I am the end

The Daily Bowie #59 - "Telling Lies"

And after a ten day break, we're back with the daily Bowie feature that is no longer daily.

Since I decided the Daily Bowie would no longer be daily, I am not killing myself to get it done.
But I have been thinking about Bowie, and reading about Bowie, and missing adding this feature to the universe, so I am going to try to set priorities better. But everything rises and falls with work and home work and other commitments.

This album has never really done much for me, but I appreciated it even though I never felt a strong connection to it.

Earthling - ALBUM - 1997

DAVID BOWIE

FROM "Telling Lies" from PUSHING AHEAD OF THE DAME:

As a song, “Telling Lies” suffered from being a guinea pig. A vague shamble between A minor and E major, its structure consisted of two intriguing verses affixed to bludgeoning, overlong choruses. Bowie’s vocal melody was a stitchwork of some obvious steals: the verses had the rhythm and melodic flavor of Leonard Cohen’s “The Future,” and, more subtly, Eno’s “Fat Lady of Limbourg,” while the chorus even had a pinch of the Beach Boys’ “I Guess I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” (cf. “sometimes I feel very sad” in the latter to “feels like something’s gonna happen this year“). And there’s a heavy-handedness to the “rock” choruses, with Bowie discarding the intricate dialogue of heavy bass/clattering, pilled-up treble of the best jungle tracks in favor of a sludgier bottom end.

Much as how the percussion loops were barely-altered versions of those on “We Prick You,” most of its lyric seemed like Outside rejects. But if baffling and clunky on record, lines like “gasping for my resurrection” and “come straggling in your tattered remnants” came alive on tour, with Bowie playing a Satanic figure in his performance, coming across as an aging imp of the perverse. As a transition piece, “Lies” worked well, getting the band into the frame of mind for what would become Earthling. When they got off the road, Bowie hustled to take a “sonic photograph” of them in the studio before they lost their tour-hardened sound.

This header is also a link...

"Telling Lies" - EARTHLING - 1997




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[Intro]

Telling Lies

[Verse 1]

Gorgeous girls are bound to meet

To talk of stars and kings and feet

Through the chromosomes of space and time

Me I'm fast like bad infection

Gasping for my resurrection

Swear to me in times of war and stress

[Chorus]

Telling lies[x4]

Telling lies (Oh ah visionary, oh ah visionary)

Telling lies (Feels like something's going to happen this year)

Telling lies (Oh ah visionary, oh ah visionary)

Telling lies (Feels like something's going to happen this year)

[Verse 2]

Shadow falls in shrinking smiles

See me poised at the happy games

Standing in the mouth of all that's pure

Come straggling in your tattered remnants

You come to me with tears and blame

I'm your future

I am tomorrow

I am the end

[Chorus]

[Bridge]

Oh ah oh[x4]

Feels like something's going to happen this year

[Chorus]

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Rest in peace, David. We miss you.

- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1604.11 - 7:13

NOTE ON WHY THE DAILY BOWIE IS NO LONGER DAILY: For 53 days, I completed daily Bowie posts. My schedule is too demanding to make a post every day, so this will now be a feature that is called The Daily Bowie, but it will not be daily. I will post as I can. I will post often. But if I miss a day, I will skip it. Otherwise, I get in the position of making five Bowie posts all in one day, and that's a lot of Bowie for people to swallow all at once... (yeah, leaving that badly phrased, innuendo packed statement. I bet Bowie would have laughed at it).