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Rating: Hunky Dory: when lightness reaches the metaphysical.
Having set aside the enjoyable but low-impact pop of "Space Oddity" and overcome the commercially modest experience of "The Man Who Sold The World," an album too eager for chart-topping singles to achieve even the slightest market success, the young Thin White Duke sees "Hunky Dory" as the last opportunity to shape his genre, his style, and, equally importantly, his image once and for all. Although the times are not yet ripe for the electric rides on the verge of punk ("Star," "Hang On To Yourself," "Suffragette City," "The Jean Genie") that will characterize the famous subsequent albums "Ziggy Stardust" and "Aladdin Sane," critics (myself included) agree in recognizing the album in question as an embryonic form of that glam rock style that will be more finely elaborated in the years to come. Here, however, it is the delightful romantic cabaret-like atmospheres and that intriguing ancient quality that give the work a very special charm. If you love Bowie raising his voice accompanied by the vibrating strings of Mick Ronson's saturated guitar and the battered skins of Woodmansey's percussion, this album is not for you; but if you want to discover the more romantic and intimate side of a Bowie playing his last card to secure a spot in the Olympus of stars, rush to buy it.
The undisputed protagonist of (almost) all the pieces is the sweet piano accompaniment in which David is a master, interrupted only by the incisive guitar streaks of the trusty Ronson. The carefree facade of the opening track ("Changes") actually hides a bitter reflection on the need to renew the artist's image and style: the frequent metamorphoses that will mark the stages of the Thin White Duke's career (a character that will actually emerge only with "Station To Station") will always keep pace with the trends and "fashions" of the moment, offering an image of Bowie as a skillful chameleon capable of riding the fluctuating tastes and moods of the large public. "Oh You Pretty Things" alternates the soft pianistic suite of the verse with a markedly more rhythmic chorus laden with dark Nietzschean references. Passing the brief but intense piano interlude of "Eight Line Poem," four simple piano chords inaugurate the classic par excellence, "Life On Mars": an enchanting crescendo introduces the resounding chorus marked by the notes of a reassuring violin carpet. Absolute masterpiece. The aforementioned romantic-decadent flavor that pervades the entire work reaches its peak in the subsequent "Kooks": the album's most delirious text is spread over an extremely catchy, soft, and nursery rhyme-like melody, accompanied by Bolder's seductive bass line and the sharp dancing chords of Bowie's piano. An arpeggio of enchanting delicacy then introduces the secret pearl of the Bowie repertoire: "Quicksand." Never performed live, the track offers the album's finest vocal performance and boasts a powerful drum accompaniment by Woodmansey. The delightful vaguely jazzy interlude of "Fill Your Heart" (composed by the American Biff Rose) provides one of the album's most charming moments: the fresh and catchy melody and the minimalist arrangement instill a subtle melancholy in the listener. The three pieces that follow are fundamental both for the album's economy and for Bowie's overall repertoire: while "Andy Warhol" sounds like a carefree and desecrating mockery of the vain New York artist made irresistible by Ronson's dreamy acoustic arpeggio, "Song For Bob Dylan" embodies the (at the time) widespread feeling of a softening of Mr. Zimmerman's universally recognized guiding role. Dedicated to his friend Lou Reed, "Queen Bitch" seems included in the list for the sole purpose of satisfying the Spiders' never-extinguished hard vein: a tense distorted riff inaugurates a faithful imitation of the voice of the then little-known overseas rocker.
Having assimilated the lesson of the Velvet Underground, Bowie seems here to want to offer a preview of the forthcoming masterpiece "Transformer." The sinister "The Bewlay Brothers" shatters the illusion of an easy closure of the highest compositionally piece of the golden age of the Thin White Duke: in the years to follow, David will reach unsuspected heights, but will hardly be able to reproduce an art of such enchanting naivety, metaphysical lightness.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Changes (03:37)
I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-Changes
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time
Strange fascination, fascinate me
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon now you're gonna get older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time
02 Oh! You Pretty Things (03:12)
Wake up you sleepy head
Put on some clothes, shake up your bed
Put another log on the fire for me
I've made some breakfast and coffee
I look out my window what do I see
A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me
All the nightmares came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay
What are we coming to
No room for me, no fun for you
I think about a world to come
Where the books were found by the Golden ones
Written in pain, written in awe
By a puzzled man who questioned
What we work here for
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh You Pretty Things (Oh You Pretty Things)
Don't you know you're driving your
Mamas and Papas insane
Oh You Pretty Things (Oh You Pretty Things)
Don't you know you're driving your
Mamas and Papas insane
Let me make it plain
You gotta make way for the Homo Superior
Look out at your children
See their faces in golden rays
Don't kid yourself they belong to you
They're the start of a coming race
The earth is a bitch
We've finished our news
Homo Sapiens have outgrown their use
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh You Pretty Things (Oh You Pretty Things)
Don't you know you're driving your
Mamas and Papas insane
Oh You Pretty Things (Oh You Pretty Things)
Don't you know you're driving your
Mamas and Papas insane
Let me make it plain
You gotta make way for the Homo Superior
03 Eight Line Poem (02:56)
The tactful cactus by your window
Surveys the prairie of your room
The mobile spins to its collision
Clara puts her head between her paws
They've opened shops down West side
Will all the cacti find a home
But the key to the city
Is in the sun that pins the branches to the sky
05 Kooks (02:54)
CHORUS (x2)
Will you stay in our lovers' story
If you stay you won't be sorry
'Cause we believe in you
Soon you'll grow so take a chance
With a couple of kooks
Hung up on romancing
We bought a lot of things to keep you warm and dry
And a funny old crib on which the paint won't dry
I bought you a pair of shoes
A trumpet you can blow
And a book of rules
On what to say to people when they pick on you
'Cause if you stay with us you're gonna be pretty kooky too
CHORUS
And if you ever have to go to school
Remember how they messed up this old fool
Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cads
'Cause I'm not much cop at punching
Other people's dads
And if the homework brings you down
Then we'll throw it on the fire
And take the car downtown
CHORUS (repeat and fade)
06 Quicksand (05:09)
I'm closer to the Golden Dawn
Immersed in Crowley's uniform
Of imagery
I'm living in a silent film
Portraying Himmler's sacred realm
Of dream reality
I'm frightened by the total goal
Drawing to the ragged hole
And I ain't got the power anymore
No I ain't got the power anymore
I'm the twisted name on Garbo's eyes
Living proof of Churchill's lies
I'm destiny
I'm torn between the light and dark
Where others see their targets
Divine symmetry
Should I kiss the viper's fang
Or herald loud the death of Man
I'm sinking in the quicksand of my thought
And I ain't got the power anymore
Don't believe in yourself
Don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with death's release
I'm not a prophet or a stone age man
Just a mortal with the potential of a superman
I'm living on
I'm tethered to the logic of Homo Sapien
Can't take my eyes from the great salvation
Of bullshit faith
If I don't explain what you ought to know
You can tell me all about it
On the next Bardo
I'm sinking in the quicksand of my thought
And I ain't got the power anymore
Don't believe in yourself
Don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with death's release
08 Andy Warhol (03:57)
Like to take a cement fix
Be a standing cinema
Dress my friends up just for show
See them as they really are
Put a peephole in my brain
Two new Pence to have a go
Like to be a gallery
Put you all inside my show
Andy Warhol looks a scream
Hang him on my wall
Andy Warhol, Silver Screen
Can't tell them apart at all
Andy walking, Andy tired
Andy take a little snooze
Tie him up when he's fast asleep
Send him on a pleasant cruise
When he wakes up on the sea
Sure to think of me and you
He'll think about paint and he'll think about glue
What a jolly boring thing to do
Andy Warhol looks a scream
Hang him on my wall
Andy Warhol, Silver Screen
Can't tell them apart at all
10 Queen Bitch (03:19)
I'm up on the eleventh floor
And I'm watching the cruisers below
He's down on the street
And he's trying hard to pull sister Flo
Oh, my heart's in the basement
My weekend's at an all time low
'Cause she's hoping to score
So I can't see her letting him go
Walk out of her heart
Walk out of her mind
She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that
She's an old-time ambassador
Of sweet talking, night walking games
And she's known in the darkest clubs
For pushing ahead of the dames
If she says she can do it
Then she can do it, she don't make false claims
But she's a Queen, and such are queens
That your laughter is sucked in their brains
Now she's leading him on
And she'll lay him right down
Yes she's leading him on
And she'll lay him right down
But it could have been me
Yes, it could have been me
Why didn't I say, why didn't I say, no, no, no
She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that
So I lay down a while
And I gaze at my hotel wall
Oh the cot is so cold
It don't feel like no bed at all
Yeah I lay down a while
And I look at my hotel wall
But he's down on the street
So I throw both his bags down the hall
And I'm phoning a cab
'Cause my stomach feels small
There's a taste in my mouth
And it's no taste at all
It could have been me
Oh yeah, it could have been me
Why didn't I say, Why didn't I say, no, no, no
She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that
11 The Bewlay Brothers (05:27)
And so the story goes they wore the clothes
They said the things to make it seem improbable
The whale of a lie like they hope it was
And the Goodmen Tomorrow
Had their feet in the wallow
And their heads of Brawn were nicer shorn
And how they bought their positions with saccharin and trust
And the world was asleep to our latent fuss
Sighing, the swirl through the streets
Like the crust of the sun
The Bewlay Brothers
In our Wings that Bark
Flashing teeth of Brass
Standing tall in the dark
Oh, And we were Gone
Hanging out with your Dwarf Men
We were so turned on
By your lack of conclusions
I was Stone and he was Wax
So he could scream, and still relax, unbelievable
And we frightened the small children away
And our talk was old and dust would flow
Thru our veins and Lo! it was midnight
Back at the kitchen door
Like the grim face on the Cathedral floor
And the solid book we wrote
Cannot be found today
And it was Stalking time for the Moonboys
The Bewlay Brothers
With our backs on the arch
In the Devil-may-be-here
But He can't sing about that
Oh, And we were Gone
Real Cool Traders
We were so Turned On
You thought we were Fakers
Now the dress is hung, the ticket pawned
The Factor Max that proved the fact
Is melted down
And woven on the edging of my pillow
Now my Brother lays upon the Rocks
He could be dead, He could be not
He could be You
He's Chameleon, Comedian, Corinthian and Caricature
Shooting-up Pie-in-the-Sky
The Bewlay Brothers
In the feeble and the Bad
Bewlay Brothers
In the Blessed and Cold
In the Crutch-hungry Dark
Was where we flayed our Mark
Oh, and we were Gone
Kings of Oblivion
We were so Turned On
In the Mind-Warp Pavilion
Lay me place and bake me Pie
I'm starving for me Gravy
Leave my shoes, and door unlocked
I might just slip away, hey
Just for the Day, Hey!
Hey, Please come Away, Hey!
Just for the Day, Hey!
Please come Away, Hey!
Please come Away, Hey!
Just for the Day
Please come Away
Please come Away
Please come Away
Please come Away
Away
(Away)
Away
Hey
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Other reviews
By animasalva
The artist clearly embraces the nascent glam rock... his contribution will be crucial in renewing the genre.
'Life On Mars?' is the most beautiful song ever written by Bowie.
By luludia
It’s that “Hunky dory” is “Hunky dory”, it’s a unique piece.
When something gets inside you, it also changes the entire context around that something.
