it's not often, look you see, that i do two blog posts in a row relating to the same subject. i would normally quite deliberately avoid it, just to make this interesting for you and interesting for me. every now and then, however, something comes along that plays my hand in this regard. like, for instance, when you find a six page, somewhat autobiographical essay by David Bowie.
famously, or if you prefer infamously, David Bowie never wrote an autobiography. legend has it that when he was asked he said something along the lines of "just pick up whichever of the many biographies out there which you think is the most interesting, assume it's the truth and get on with your own life", which is a fair enough response.
mindful of the above, whilst Bowie was anything but reticent or shy in interviews, one never really got to hear him say anything of his own volition - at least outside of letting the music speak for itself. album notes and comments were normally sparse, which makes the six page essay he wrote for the booklet for the original release of The Buddha Of Suburbia soundtrack CD rare if not unique.
here are the six pages, then, with minimal further intrusion from me. hopefully if you click on the pages they come up large and clear enough to read. if not, leave a message and i will scan as a PDF or something i suppose.
oh go on then, for a bit of a break, here's a snippet from the album itself. here's a few seconds, for those able to play video from this blog (very much browser dependent), of Dead Against It.
if you are unfamiliar with the album i would suggest that you, even if just a passing Bowie fan, seek it out. it's amazing, man. other than the title track, things like Dead Against It, Sex And The Church, Bleed Like A Craze Dad and, in particular, the original version of Strangers When We Meet (later re-recorded for the Outside album) stand among his finest work.
anyway, back to the linear notes of the booklet.
i don't know how many times i read and re-read this when it first came out. to me it has always felt like how it would have read if Bowie had been interested enough to produce an autobiography. but hey, in terms of capturing the time, his state of mind, and his feelings on certain things, it works just perfectly as it is in its own right.
no, sorry, i don't have any permission or that to share this here. hopefully anyone with a vested interest, or simply a heart, will respect that i am plugging the album for them and know that i am sharing some seldom seen words from someone that we all so very dearly miss.
i know that the soundtrack album, eventually, got reissued with an image of Bowie on the cover, rather than the first edition one i have which focuses on the TV show. as i didn't pick up the reissue just for the cover (was tempting) i have no idea if this essay is in it or not. i do know that when Nirvana's Incesticide compilation was reissued the rather controversial essay by Kurt Cobain which appeared in the first run was gone. perhaps the same happened here.
anyway, i hope, trust and have a wish that fellow Bowie fans who may not have seen this before have found this quite interesting.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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