After the humble, folksy ride of David Bowie (1967), I'm hungry for something recognizable to a casual Bowie fan. That runs contrary to the spirit of this little experiment, but hey, Space Oddity, I know that one! The track comes and goes, a master class in psychedelic folk. You know it, and I knew it coming into this, so I won't gush over it here.

Somewhere over the next 40 minutes, I become a real Bowie fan. As the final notes of Memory of a Free Festival echo through my headphones, I decide to write this post. Don't get me wrong- Space Oddity is an excellent track. I loved that song before, and I love it now. It's not close to the best song on this album. I could spend the entire post writing a love letter to the standout tracks, but I'm sticking to the cliff's notes (save one song).

I'm a huge Led Zeppelin fan, and therefore a sucker for a classic 70s guitar riff. I had heard that David Bowie was constantly evolving, but I also think that he was constantly a bit ahead of his time. There are countless other examples down the road, but for now I noticed two: Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed and Janine (side note: I love the way he pronounces "Janine") boast the kind of guitar lines that wouldn't be popular until the mid-70s. Plus, like all the good 70s rock I grew up on, these songs connect to you. Some of them tell a complete story (see my dissertation on Cygnet Committee below, or Space Oddity). Some of them put words to emotions or experiences - sparks of nostalgia that let us briefly relive our own past:

"Janine, Janine, you'd like to know me well,

But I've got things inside my head

That even I can't face."

I've never dated a girl named Janine, but that isn't the point. I can recall times in my life where I had to put things on ice to sort out my own issues. Janine is about a girl, but you can feel the same way about any opportunity you have to pass on because your head isn't in the right place. That's an incredible thing to contemplate- a few minutes of music and lyrics (okay, a few minutes of Bowie) can bind together a profound life experience and make you feel like you're living it all over again.

Musical theater has an oddly distinct sound. If you're exposed to musicals enough, you can place it, but it's difficult to explain. Some people would argue that it's not a genre in and of itself, but I'm convinced that it is. Not sure what the hell I'm talking about? Listen to Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud, then imagine it shoe-horned into the first act of Hair. Still not sure what I mean? Fuck it, we'll work on it. It's a great song, in any case.

Standout Track: Cygnet Committee

One of the reasons I like the Hunger Games trilogy is that it poses a great question: What happens after the revolution? We all know the story- a rag-tag band of rebels fights for freedom against a tyrannical government. Against seemingly insurmountable odds, our lovable gang prevails. Peace and prosperity reign forever and ever. Does that sound entirely unrealistic? I've always thought so. For every American Revolution, you have a dozen examples of political upheavals that ended tragically for the common folk. We solve one problem only to create another. In Mockingjay, we see this sort of triumph (Snow defeated) followed by an ugly sort of comeuppance (Coin's proposal for a new set of Hunger Games).

Why am I bringing this up in a post about David Bowie's music? For me, the standout track on Space Oddity tells a Mockingjay-esque story. There may be other ways of interpreting the lyrics, but I promised you I'd fly blind and use my own impressions.

"So much has gone, and little is new."

This song is about a peaceful movement that gets co-opted by the wrong people. What makes it special to me is that Bowie takes on the role of one of the founders- we hear him pining for days long past ("I gave them life, I gave them all") and lamenting what he and his once like-minded companions have become, versus what they could have been.



Musically, the track stood out for its progressions. There are sudden, drastic changes that mirror the emotional highs and lows that our narrator experiences. We're in a dreamy, psychedelic place when Bowie recalls his friends speaking out for peace, love and freedom, then smacked across the face with a darker set of chords as he recalls the "talking man" who twisted their ideas and used their passion to institutionalize violence. A few verses later, we hear a man desperate to believe that there is good left in his world, despite seeing all the madness and hypocrisy that has taken root.

It's a striking message carried by brilliant chord progressions and haunting lyrics. It's exhausting in the best way.

The Man Who Sold the World (1970)