A Sense of Doubt blog post #2540 - Censorship Week - "Big Brother" - David Bowie - Musical Monday for 2201.31

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2540 - Censorship Week - "Big Brother" - David Bowie - Musical Monday for 2201.31

I had other plans for this week. I have been pretty good about planning my blog over a month in advance. I have plans through March Third right now. Not every date has a planned entry but more than half do, and the plans for two weeks ahead, almost all the time, are set up and in many cases posts already completed or in some stage of the drafting process, depending on how much work by me that they require.

So, I had all these plans, and I have postponed the plans when I saw that a school board in Tennessee banned the book Maus from its school district. More on that tomorrow, but since I already had had been writing a post about the banning of Gender Queer, then it made sense to make this CENSORSHIP WEEK. I have a couple posts that I am going to have to find a "censorship angle" to take. 

I am still in the process of ranking the albums, a topic to which I will return next week in this final, CONSECUTIVE series of Bowie posts for January. I should try to remember to make this an annual event.

The song "Big Brother" documents what happens after one acquiesces to the dictator. Because David Bowie roots the song in the fascists of his youth (well, just before as Bowie was born in 1947), it is prophetic to today because all fascists follow the same pattern of autocratic, authoritarian, and totalitarian rule. 

State and local governments and school boards are trying to clamp down on what teachers are allowed to teach and what children are allowed to learn because they are afraid of the truth.

The truth.

"You can't handle the truth."

David Bowie - Big Brother/Chant of the ever circling skeletal family

Feb 23, 2009

Aliensatemybrain

"Big Brother" is a song written by David Bowie in 1973 and intended for his never-produced musical based on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. In 1974 it was released on the album Diamond Dogs. It segued into the final track on the record, "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family."

Lyrically, the song reflects the ending of Nineteen Eighty-Four, where Winston Smith's brainwashing is complete, and he loves Big Brother. This was described by Bowie biographer David Buckley as "a frightening paean to the Super God," while Nicholas Pegg considered that Bowie was showing how "the glamour of dictatorships is balanced with the banality."

The opening trumpet line, played on a Chamberlin, has been compared to Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain. The melody in the chorus was echoed in Bowie's own "Shining Star (Makin' My Love)" from Never Let Me Down (1987).

"Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family" is a song written by David Bowie in 1974 ending his Diamond Dogs album.

The song ends with the endlessly repeating sound of "bruh-bruh-bruh...," the first syllable of the word 'Brother' from "(Big) Brother" (the title and refrain of the preceding track) as though the record had broken. Bowie's initial intention had been for the machine to repeat the whole of the word 'Brother,' but accidentally discovered that just the first syllable sounded much better.

The Goth-band Skeletal Family took their name from this song.

This song is David Bowie's interpretation of George Orwell's "two minute hate" from his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Its mesmerizing chanting represents the mind-numbing influence that the two minutes has over the brainwashed citizens of Oceania, 1984's totalitarian government.

Music in this video

Song - Big Brother (1999 Remaster)

Artist -  David Bowie

Album - DIAMOND DOGS

Licensed to YouTube by

WMG (on behalf of PLG UK Catalog); LatinAutorPerf, CMRRA, Abramus Digital, ASCAP, Sony ATV Publishing, LatinAutor, SOLAR Music Rights Management, ARESA, LatinAutor - PeerMusic, LatinAutor - SonyATV, MINT_BMG, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA - UBEM, BMG Rights Management (US), LLC, and 6 Music Rights Societies

Song - Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family (2016 Remaster)

Artist - David Bowie

Album - DIAMOND DOGS

Licensed to YouTube by

WMG (on behalf of PLG UK Catalog); LatinAutorPerf, ASCAP, CMRRA, ARESA, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA - UBEM, LatinAutor, Abramus Digital, Sony ATV Publishing, LatinAutor - PeerMusic, BMG Rights Management (US), LLC, SOLAR Music Rights Management, MINT_BMG, and 8 Music Rights Societies

DAVID BOWIE OFFICIAL:

"Big Brother" (2016 Remaster)

Feb 9, 2017

David Bowie

Provided to YouTube by Parlophone UK

"Big Brother" (2016 Remaster) · David Bowie

"Big Brother"

Song by David Bowie

Don't talk of dust and roses

Or should we powder our noses?

Don't live for last year's capers

Give me steel, give me steel, give me pulsars unreal

He'll build a glass asylum

With just a hint of mayhem

He'll build a better whirlpool

We'll be living from sin, then we can really begin

Please savior, saviour, show us

Hear me, I'm graphically yours

Someone to claim us, someone to follow

Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo

Someone to fool us, someone like you

We want you Big Brother, Big Brother

I know you think you're awful square

But you made everyone and you've been every where

Lord, I'd take an overdose if you knew what's going down

Someone to claim us, someone to follow

Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo

Someone to fool us, someone like you

Someone to claim us, someone to follow

Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo

Someone to fool us, someone like you

Someone to claim us, someone to follow

Someone to shame us, some brave Apollo

Someone to fool us, someone like you

We want you Big Brother

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: David Bowie

Big Brother lyrics © Jones Music America, Chrysalis Music Ltd

HALLOWEEN JACK:




https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/big-brother-2/

Big Brother

Big Brother.
Big Brother (live, 1974).
Big Brother (live, 1987.)

A love song to abasement, a fascist hymn, a cocaine song: “Big Brother” apparently was, in the scheme of Bowie’s Nineteen Eighty-Four adaptation, meant as an end piece to accompany the broken Winston Smith’s submission at last to Big Brother. It may well have been intended as the show’s closing song.

“Big Brother” is built like a flowchart, designed to move the listener from doubt (the verses open in B minor, move slowly up to A at the end of the first two lines, a structure repeated in the chorus, though Bowie sings the latter in a much higher register) to desire (the first bridge, “please savior, savior show us”) to, in the choruses, an ecstatic submission to power. Once you move past a certain point, there’s no way back: take how the verse never reoccurs after Bowie sings the chorus. There’s only the four-bar second bridge (Bowie singing alone on acoustic guitar, “I know you think you’re awful square”…) that serves as a final breath before the song completely gives itself over.

Still, submitting to a higher power—a dictator, a president (the chorus promises that the divine ruler will be “someone to fool us, someone like you”), even a line of coke—can be beautiful, “Big Brother” argues. Its final chorus repeats are glorious, soaring with melody (Bowie’s upward leaps at the start of each bar), with each chorus offering something to further the excitement—a new counter-melody emerging on guitar or a great rolling drum fill by Aynsley Dunbar in the final repeat. It’s a stunning resolution to a game that’s been rigged to lead you there all along, from the one-bar gaps between the bridges and chorus that give an illusion of space and freedom, to how the saxophones are present throughout the song, prodding the listener along like warders.

Are there signs of resistance? The scrappy acoustic guitar playing, barely discernible, under most of the track? Bowie’s octave-doubled lead vocal, with his more resonant voice shadowed by a thinner, lower one, like a bad conscience? Or the realization that the “trumpet” whose fanfare opens the track and which gets the solo, is a fraud, a synthesizer in disguise? And is there a sly sense of humor under it all? Nicholas Pegg makes the excellent call that one of “Big Brother”‘s ancestors is The Bonzo Dog Band’s 1969 parody of Charles Atlas ads, “Mr. Apollo,” a track Dunbar drummed on. (“He’s the strongest man/the world has ever seen…follow Mr. Apollo/everybody knows he’s the greatest man!)

If so, they’re wiped out by the efficiency, beauty and power of Bowie’s song, whose three and a half minutes culminate in its final line, a simply-sung “we want you Big Brother,” which immediately segues into the tribal celebration of “Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family.” Broken and emptied, the once-human being is brought to his feet and made to dance.

Recorded 14-15 January 1974, a regular during the ’74 tour, revived for the Glass Spider tour of 1987.

Top: Augusto Pinochet and friends, Santiago, Chile, ca. September 1973.

THE DAILY BOWIE LIST

1601.20 - The Daily Bowie #0 - "Space Oddity" - SPACE ODDITY - 1969

1601.21 - The Daily Bowie #1 - "Ashes to Ashes" - SCARY MONSTERS - 1980

1601.22 - The Daily Bowie #2 - "Cat People" - LET'S DANCE - 1983

1601.23 - The Daily Bowie #3 - "Sons of the Silent Age" - HEROES - 1977

1601.24 - The Daily Bowie #4 - "Running Gun Blues" - THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD - 1970

1601.25 - The Daily Bowie #5 - "Sound and Vision" - LOW - 1977

1601.26 - The Daily Bowie #6 - "Fill Your Heart" - HUNKY DORY - 1971

1601.27 - The Daily Bowie #7 - "We Are The Dead" - DIAMOND DOGS - 1974

1601.28 - The Daily Bowie #8 - "Yassassin" - LODGER - 1979

1601.29 - The Daily Bowie #9 - "Time" - ALADDIN SANE - 1973

1601.30 - The Daily Bowie #10 - "Where Are We Now?" - THE NEXT DAY -2013

1601.31 - The Daily Bowie #11 - "Sunday" - HEATHEN - 2002

1602.01 - The Daily Bowie #12 - "Loving the Alien" - TONIGHT - 1984

1602.02 - The Daily Bowie #13 - "The Loneliest Guy" - REALITY - 2003

1602.03 - The Daily Bowie #14 - "Young Americans" - YOUNG AMERICANS - 1975

1602.04 - The Daily Bowie #15 - "Thursday's Child" - 'HOURS...' - 1999

1602.05 - The Daily Bowie #16 - "Buddha of Suburbia" - THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA - 1993

1602.06 - The Daily Bowie #17 - "Please Mr. Gravedigger" - DAVID BOWIE - 1967 

1602.07 - The Daily Bowie #18 - "Sorrow" - PINUPS - 1973

1602.08 - The Daily Bowie #19 - "Golden Years" - STATION TO STATION - 1976

1602.09 - The Daily Bowie #20 - "I'm Afraid of Americans" - EARTHLING - 1997

1602.10 - The Daily Bowie #21 - "Pallas Athena" - BLACK TIE WHITE NOISE - 1993

1602.11 - The Daily Bowie #22 - "Glass Spider" - NEVER LET ME DOWN - 1987

1602.12 - The Daily Bowie #23 - "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" - OUTSIDE - 1995

1602.13 - The Daily Bowie #24 - "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide" - THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS - 1972

1602.14 - The Daily Bowie #25 - "Lazarus" - BLACKSTAR - 2016

1602.15 - The Daily Bowie #26 - "Tin Machine" - TIN MACHINE - 1989

1602.16 - The Daily Bowie #27 - "Baby Universal" - TIN MACHINE II - 1991

1602.17 - The Daily Bowie #28 - "Changes" - DAVID LIVE - 1974

1602.18 - The Daily Bowie #29 - "Fame" - STAGE - 1978

1602.19 - The Daily Bowie #30 - "SENSE OF DOUBT" - HEROES - 1977

1602.20 - The Daily Bowie #31 - "John, I'm Only Dancing" - CHANGESONEBOWIE - 1990

1602.21 - The Daily Bowie #32 - "London Bye Ta Ta" - BOWIE AT THE BEEB - 2000

1602.22 - The Daily Bowie #33 - "Real Cool World" - BLACK TIE WHITE NOISE - LIMITED ED - 2003

1602.23 - The Daily Bowie #34 - "Five Years" - THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS - 1972

1602.24 - The Daily Bowie #35 - "Speed of Life" - LOW - 1977

1602.25 - The Daily Bowie #36 - "I'm Deranged" - OUTSIDE - 1995

1602.26 - The Daily Bowie #37 - "Fall Dog Bombs the Moon" - REALITY - 2003

1602.27 - The Daily Bowie #38 - "I Can't Give Everything Away" - BLACKSTAR - 2016

1602.28 - The Daily Bowie #39 - "Diamond Dogs" - DIAMOND DOGS - 1974

1602.29 - The Daily Bowie #40 - "The Laughing Gnome" - THE DERAM ANTHOLOGY 1966-1968 (r.1997)

1603.01 - The Daily Bowie #41 - "Fascination" - YOUNG AMERICANS - 1975

1603.02 - The Daily Bowie #42 - "Panic in Detroit" - ALADDIN SANE - 1973

1603.03 - The Daily Bowie #43 - "Modern Love" - LET'S DANCE - 1983

1603.04 - The Daily Bowie #44 - "Fashion" - SCARY MONSTERS - Deluxe - 1980

1603.05 - The Daily Bowie #45 - "Life On Mars" - HUNKY DORY - 1971

1603.06 - The Daily Bowie #46 - "London Boys" - THE DERAM ANTHOLOGY 1966-1968 (r.1997)

1603.07 - The Daily Bowie #47 - "Fantastic Voyage" - LODGER - 1979

1603.08 - The Daily Bowie #48 - "The Man Who Sold the World" - THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD - 1970

1603.09 - The Daily Bowie #49 - "Stay" - STATION TO STATION - 1976

1603.10 - The Daily Bowie #50 - "Starman" - THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS - 1972

1603.11 - The Daily Bowie #51 - "Crystal Japan" - SCARY MONSTERS - Deluxe - 1980

1603.12 - The Daily Bowie #52 - "An Occasional dream" - SPACE ODDITY - 1969

- FOUR DAY BREAK

1603.17 - The Daily Bowie #53 - "Miracle Goodnight" - BLACK TIE WHITE NOISE - 1993

- TWO DAY BREAK

1603.20 - The Daily Bowie #54 - "5:15 The Angels Have Gone" - HEATHEN - 2002

1603.22 - The Daily Bowie #55 - "Queen Bitch" - HUNKY DORY - 1971

- SEVEN DAY BREAK

1603.29 - The Daily Bowie #56 - "Criminal World" - LET'S DANCE - 1983

- ONE DAY BREAK

1603.31 - The Daily Bowie #57 - "Move On" - LODGER - 1979

1604.01 - The Daily Bowie #58 - "Rebel Rebel" - DIAMOND DOGS - 1974

- TEN DAY BREAK

1604.11 - The Daily Bowie #59 - "Telling Lies" - EARTHLING - 1997

1604.12 - The Daily Bowie #60 - "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" - THE NEXT DAY -2013

- THREE DAY BREAK

1604.15 - The Daily Bowie #61 - "Jean Genie" - ALADDIN SANE -1973

- SEVEN DAY BREAK

1604.22 - The Daily Bowie #62 - "The Dreamers" - HOURS - 1999

1604.23 - The Daily Bowie #63 - "Breaking Glass" - LOW - 1977 - and STAGE - 1978

1604.24 - The Daily Bowie #64 - "Tonight" - TONIGHT - 1984

1604.25 - The Daily Bowie #65 - "Up the Hill Backwards" - SCARY MONSTERS - 1980

- SEVEN DAY BREAK

1605.02 - The Daily Bowie #66 - "I'd Rather Be High" - THE NEXT DAY - 2013

- SEVEN DAY BREAK

1605.09 - The Daily Bowie #67 - "A Better Future" - HEATHEN - 2002

1605.10 - The Daily Bowie #68 - "Strangers When We Meet" - BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA - 1993

- TWO WEEKS OFF

1605.24 - The Daily Bowie #69 - "She'll Drive the Big Car" - REALITY - 2003

- SIX DAYS OFF

1605.31 - The Daily Bowie #70 -"Days" - David Bowie - REALITY - 2003

- SEVEN DAYS OFF

1606.07 - The Daily Bowie #71 - "Under Pressure" - NOTHING HAS CHANGED - D2 - 2014

1606.09 - The Not Quite Daily Bowie - #72 - "Moonage Daydream" - THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS - 1972

- BIG BREAK - 12 days

1606.21 - The Not Quite Daily Bowie - #73 - "Don't Let Me Down & Down" - BLACK TIE WHITE NOISE - 1993

1606.22 - The Daily Bowie - #74 - "If You Can See Me" - THE NEXT DAY - 2013

1607.23 - The Not Quite Daily Bowie - #75 -  "Warszawa" - LOW (1977) and STAGE (1978)

- MONTH BREAK- 

1608.25 - The Not so often Formerly Daily Bowie - #76 - "Zeroes" - NEVER LET ME DOWN - 1987

MANY MONTHS OFF

1701.10 - The Not so often Formerly Daily Bowie - #77 -  "Somebody Up There Likes Me" - YOUNG AMERICANS - 1975

1701.11 - The Not so often Formerly Daily Bowie - #78 -  "All the Madmen" - THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD - 1972

1701.12 - The Not so often Formerly Daily Bowie - #79 - "Quicksand" - HUNKY DORY - 1971

-ONE DAY BREAK-

1701.14 - The Not so often Formerly Daily Bowie - #80 - "The Secret Life of Arabia" - HEROES - 1977

-TWO DAY BREAK-

1701.17 - The Not so often Formerly Daily Bowie - #81 - "Candidate" - DIAMOND DOGS - 1974

1701.29 - The Not so often Formerly Daily Bowie - #82 - "Neighborhood Threat" - TONIGHT - 1984

2201.10 - The Not so often Formerly Daily Bowie - #83 - "Word on a Wing" - STATION TO STATION - 1976

2201.24 - The Not so often Formerly Daily Bowie - #84 -  "Hang on to Yourself" - THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS - 1972

2201.31 - The Not so often Formerly Daily Bowie - #85 - "Big Brother" - DIAMOND DOGS - 1974

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2201.31 - 10:10

- Days ago = 2404 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.