Ramblings of a retiree in France
This is Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday Challenge, a man after my own heart as he posts the themes well in advance giving us all time to choose an appropriate response. This week’s prompt is Clear/Dark/Light and, after thinking about a suitable song from my own collection, my suggestion is the 2015 remastered version of David Bowie‘s track Quicksand from his 1971 album Hunky Dory.
Written by well-known English singer-songwriter the late, great David Bowie and released on his 1971 album Hunky Dory. This ballad features multi-tracked acoustic guitars and a string arrangement by the late Mick Ronson. Like much of Bowie’s work at this time, it was influenced by Buddhism, occultism and Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the Superman. It refers to the magical society Golden Dawn and name-checks one of its most famous members, Aleister Crowley, as well as Heinrich Himmler, Winston Churchill and Juan Pujol (codename: Garbo).
I was fortunate to see Bowie in concert numerous times and when we lived in Chiswick in the mid-eighties our next-door neighbour was Bowie’s lighting engineer. We used to meet loads of interesting people from the world of music at their parties, including the above-mentioned Mick Ronson.
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
Aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah
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
Aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah
Don’t believe in yourself, don’t deceive with belief
Knowledge comes with death’s release
Aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah, aah-aah
Challenge Rules
Love Bowie saw him at Earls court ,so many costume changes I got dizzy.Used to have have everything by Bowie ..Including the laughing Gnome
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My next door neighbour was his lighting engineer
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