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Sinking into the Ghost Town
or the eternal song of skeleton families
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Death.
Death came to meet me one summer day while I was browsing through the stalls at a market in a remote village in Bergamo, when I still believed glam was just a dandy alien playing with glitter. I did not seek out Death; it found me, just like Tolkien's Ring. In this case, Death popped out from the cover of a record, with dark red hair, lipstick, and eyes ringed in black. Death was thin, naked, and calling me to its ghost town, Hunger City, whispering me a "Future Legend."
"And in death, as the last few corpses lie rotting in the slimy thoroughfare"
, I too begin to sink with them into this exquisitely sick, perverse, and decadent slimy thoroughfare. Death initially has the deceptively smiling and terrifying appearance of the "Diamond Dogs", then reveals its true face, and behind the smile hides the triad "Sweet Thing-Candidate-Sweet Thing Reprise", a despair as deep as the mud and debris of this ghost town, a delirious solitude surrounded by a thousand faces of puppets and cadaverous circus phenomena. Everything we've wanted is a sweet taste with claws that grabs us and takes us down to the depths of this hallucinatory journey in Death's half-man, half-dog body.
But it’s time to hide the scars with makeup, disguise ourselves as "Rebel Rebel", don a guitar stolen from the Rolling Stones, and once more climb on stage to pretend we are in the prime of "youthful success" dancing to exhaustion one last "Rock And Roll With Me" of tears.
After the last dance, the metamorphosis is complete, now "We Are The Dead", we are the dead and we hide behind the remains of this Apocalypse, behind the ruins of a love torn apart by the Diamond Dogs, secret police, ghost assassins of hope, the last one we have left is to suffocate in peace in this hell of newspapers, leeches, relatives, dancers, financiers, and Bankrupt Children. "For everything we've seen, for everything we've said we are the Dead"
.
We are the Dead, we are Death, we have sunk, annihilated, integrated, we do not exist in it, and in it, we are already in "1984", and we care not if a "Big Brother" has cracked our skulls with the blows of these last hammering dances of skeleton families because we are part of them forever, as long as Death exists, as long as it continues to annihilate and suffocate us with the dirty sheets of cocaine from these songs...
...I could have written that in 1974 the English singer David Bowie, after dramatically discarding the toy Ziggy Stardust with a stunning suicide, wrote an album halfway between glam and soul, a concept album inspired by George Orwell's book "1984" and seasoned with futuristic sounds, apocalyptic suggestions, saxophones, lacerating guitars, and voices from the beyond... I could have talked about the relationship between the artist, Burroughs' cut-up writing technique, and cocaine... I could have narrated how Bowie invented dark... I could have told you about a former mime who, obsessed with his own characters, fled to Los Angeles in search of new soul and funky inspirations... I could have done all this, but at a mountain market, I met a creature half man and half dog, with long red hair and eyes dyed black, who took me with him to the city of skeletal mannequins and painted ghosts.
from "Sweet Thing Reprise"
"Is it nice in your snow storm, freezing your brain?
Do you think that your face looks the same?
Then let it be, it’s all I ever wanted
It’s a street with a deal, and a taste
It’s got claws, it’s got me, it’s got you"
Lyrics and translations "borrowed" from www.velvetgoldmine.it (official Italian site of David Bowie)
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Future Legend (01:08)
And in the death
As the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare
The shutters lifted in inches in Temperance Building
High on Poacher's Hill
And red mutant eyes gaze down on Hunger City
No more big wheels
Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats
And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes
Coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers
Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love-Me Avenue
Ripping and rewrapping mink and shiny silver fox, now legwarmers
Family badge of sapphire and cracked emerald
Any day now
The Year of the Diamond Dogs
02 Diamond Dogs (05:58)
As they pulled you out
Of the oxygen tent
You asked for the latest party
With your silicon hump
And your ten inch stump
Dressed like a priest you was,
Todd Browning streak he was
Crawling down the alley on
Your hands and your knees,
I'm sure you're not protected
For it's plain to see
Diamond Dogs are poachers
And they hide behind trees
Hunt you to the ground they will,
Mannequins with kill appeal
Will they come?
I keep a friend serene
Will they come?
Oh, baby, come unto me
Will they come?
Well, she's come, been, and gone
Come out of the garden, baby
You'll catch a death in the fog
Young girls, they call them
The Diamond Dogs
In the year of the scavenger
Season of the bitch
Sashay on the board-walk
Scurry to the ditch
Just another future song
Lonely little Keats
There's gonna be sorrow
Try and wake up for tomorrow
The Halloween Jack
Is a real cool cat,
And he lives on top
Of Manhattan Chase
The elevators broke
So he slides down a rope
Onto the street below
Oh Tarzie, go man, go
Will they come?
I keep a friend serene
Will they come?
Oh, baby, come unto me
Will they come?
Well, she's come, been, and gone
Come out of the garden, baby
You'll catch a death in the fog
Young girls, they call them
The Diamond Dogs
Young girls, they call them
The Diamond Dogs
Who-who-who
Who-who-who
Who-who-who
Who-who-who will fuck you now?
04 Candidate (02:40)
I'll make you a deal like any other candidate.
We'll pretend were walking home cause your future's at stake
My set is amazing, it even smells like the street
There is a bar at the end where I could meet you and your friend.
Someone scrawled on the wall "I smell the blood of les tricoteuses"
Who wrote up scandals in other bars
I am having so much fun with the poisonous people
Spreading rumors and lies and stories they made up
Some make you sing and some make you scream
One makes you wish that you never been seen
But there's a shop on the corner selling papier mache
Making bullet-proof faces Charles Manson, Cassius Clay
If you want it, boys get it here thing.
So you scream out of line
"I want you! I need you! Anyone out there? Anytime?
Tres butch little number whines "Hey girlie, I want you
When it's good it's really good and when it's bad I go to pieces"
If you want it, boys, get it here, thing
Well, on the street where you live I could not hold up my head
For I put all I have in another bed
On another floor, in the back of a car
In the cellar of a church with the door ajar.
Well, I guess we must be looking for a different kind
But we can't stop trying til we break up our minds
'Til the sun drips blood on the seedy young knights
Who press on the ground while shaking in fright
I guess we could cruise down one more time
With you by my side, it should be fine
We'll buy some drugs and watch a band
Then jump into a river holding hands
06 Rebel Rebel (04:34)
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo (x3)
You've got your mother in a whirl
She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl
Hey babe, your hair's alright
Hey babe, let's go out tonight
You like me, and I like it all
We like dancing and we look divine
You love bands when they're playing hard
You want more and you want it fast
They put you down, they say I'm wrong
You tacky thing, you put them on
Rebel Rebel, you've torn your dress
Rebel Rebel, your face is a mess
Rebel Rebel, how could they know?
Hot tramp, I love you so!
Don't ya?
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo
You've got your mother in a whirl 'cause she's
Not sure if you're a boy or a girl
Hey babe, your hair's alright
Hey babe, let's stay out tonight
You like me, and I like it all
We like dancing and we look divine
You love bands when they're playing hard
You want more and you want it fast
They put you down, they say I'm wrong
You tacky thing, you put them on
Rebel Rebel, you've torn your dress
Rebel Rebel, your face is a mess
Rebel Rebel, how could they know?
Hot tramp, I love you so!
Don't ya?
Oh?
Doo doo doo-doo doo doo doo doo (x2)
Rebel Rebel, you've torn your dress
Rebel Rebel, your face is a mess
Rebel Rebel, how could they know?
Hot tramp, I love you so!
You've torn your dress, your face is a mess
You can't get enough, but enough ain't the test
You've got your transmission and your live wire
You got your cue line and a handful of ludes
You wanna be there when they count up the dues
And I love your dress
You're a juvenile success
Because your face is a mess
So how could they know?
I said, how could they know?
So what you wanna know
Calamity's child, chi-chile, chi-chile
Where'd you wanna go?
What can I do for you? Looks like you've been there too
'Cause you've torn your dress
And your face is a mess
Ooo, your face is a mess
Ooo, ooo, so how could they know?
Eh, eh, how could they know?
Eh, eh
09 1984 (03:27)
Someday they won't let you, so now you must agree
The times they are a-telling, and the changing isn't free
You've read it in the tea leaves, and the tracks are on TV
Beware the savage lure
Of 1984
They'll split your pretty cranium, and fill it full of air
And tell that you're eighty, but brother, you won't care
You'll be shooting up on anything, tomorrow's never there
Beware the savage lure
Of 1984
Come see, come see, remember me?
We played out an all night movie role
You said it would last, but I guess we enrolled
In 1984 (who could ask for more)
1984 (who could ask for mor-or-or-or-ore)
(Mor-or-or-or-ore)
I'm looking for a vehicle, I'm looking for a ride
I'm looking for a party, I'm looking for a side
I'm looking for the treason that I knew in '65
Beware the savage lure
Of 1984
Come see, come see, remember me?
We played out an all night movie role
You said it would last, but I guess we enrolled
In 1984 (who could ask for more)
1984 (who could ask for mor-or-or-or-ore)
(Mor-or-or-or-ore)
1984
1984
1984 (more)
1984
1984 (more)
1984
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