The Bowie Project #1 – David Bowie (1967)
The David
Bowie we find on his 1967 debut album is not quite the Bowie so many would
later come to know and love. The pieces are there, the ambition, the
creativity, the lyricism but it never quite manages to come together as a
cohesive whole. There’s a strange mix of genres on display here, ranging from
baroque to music hall to psychedelic rock with Bowie himself stating that the
album “seemed to have its roots all over the place, in rock and vaudeville and
music hall. I didn't know if I was Max Miller or Elvis Presley".
But in a way,
that’s part of its charm. Bowie is finding his feet and personally I find that
rather enjoyable. It’s nice to know that his artistic vision didn’t arrive
fully formed, that there was a couple of false starts before the real good
stuff, that even if we’re not fully satisfied with the things we create, we can
go back to the drawing board to begin again, and like a caterpillar going into
its cocoon, we can emerge anew as our own version of a Ziggy Stardust. But to
get there you must first follow your own path and for Mr. Bowie that path takes
him down some unusual alleyways.
First,
you’ve got his early bands like the Kon-Rads, The King Bees, or the Mannish
Boys and the Lower Third. These bands serve as the young Davy Jones (Bowie
comes later) introduction to the exciting world of pop and mod music in the
mid-1960s. Early R&B singles like “Liza Jane” or “I Pity the Fool”
attempted to replicate the sound of bands like the Who or the Yardbirds to
little success. These failures were enough for Bowie to consider switching
gears and leave pop behind and ultimately led to him studying mime under famed
choreographer Lindsay Kemp. Though it’s said that Bowie was often met with boos
and heckles when he attempted to perform his mime act, this sense of
theatricality is what would later set him apart as as his persona
would shift and change, turning the burgeoning musician into a musical enigma.
So, in 1967, in a bid not to be confused with Monkees’ singer, Davy Jones took the stage name David Bowie, goes solo and releases his first album. The influence of artists like Ray Davies of the Kinks or Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd are clear throughout. However, Bowie’s most direct influence is the Broadway actor and singer Anthony Newley whose showmanship and music hall performances inspired much of the music on display here. The album is whimsical, its Edwardian, it’s over the top, and it’s desperately uneven.
The album
opens relatively promisingly with “Uncle Arthur”, a strange track about
an infantilised man in his 30s who loves his mummy and Batman comics and still
lives at home. It’s actually quite a damning reflection of modern society that
this man is supposed to be a laughable pathetic eccentric oddball when today
this is quite a standard situation. What’s interesting starting off this album
is just how much Bowie’s voice is there, he’s just 19 years old at this point,
but he’s got his signature singing style down and in later albums it tends to stay quite close too we’ve got right here, although admittedly it does
develop and improve with the older Bowie taking more risks vocally.
“Sell Me a Coat” depicts a failed love affair in which the protagonist is left by his summer lover as we watch the seasons shift into winter so too does Bowie’s emotion, he is now cold and needs a coat to warm him up. Do you get it? The young Bowie would get an A+ in his English class for an excellent use of pathetic fallacy.
The album starts to pick up steam with the marching tune “Rubber Band” which demonstrates for the first time Bowie’s ability as a songwriter to be reckoned with and his impassioned melodramatic vocals give the track real sense of urgency. This was the first single off the album, and is what led to Bowie getting a record contract in the first place, although when released it failed to have much of an impact.
It’s quickly followed by “Love You til Tuesday” the second single from the
album, a bland enough love song with stalkerish overtones, it’s upbeat and
catchy, but ultimately it still falls a little flat. The song is also the title of a 1969 promotion film that Bowie's manager Kenneth Pitt wanted to use to bring Bowie to a wider audience. It was ultimately shelved and remained unreleased until it came out on VHS in 1984.
“There is a Happy Land” is a sentimental look at the imaginative joys of childhood sung from a child’s perspective. At just 19 years old at the time of recording Bowie might just be a little bit too close to his own childhood to play the nostalgia card with enough nuance for it to truly work.
When I
start to get really interested is on the sixth track “We Are Hungry Men” which
is the first instance in Bowie’s career of his fascination with totalitarianism
and crumbling societies that we later see on albums like Ziggy Stardust and
Diamond Dogs. The song speaks of an overpopulated world where all those who
refuse to see the singer as the Messiah will be killed. With lyrics like “I
have prepared a document, legalizing mass abortion. We will turn a blind eye to
infanticide” this track is pretty out there for the time.
Apparently, Bowie thought very highly of “When I Live My Dream” believing it would be his breakout song and bring him stardom and I can see why it’s got quite a grand feel to it and the lyricism is impressive, however its got to no real hook to it and its easy to see why it wouldn’t have really broken through in the 1960’s pop music scene at the time, even for then it feels a little dated. But the more I listen to it the more it grows on me, it's quietly a very beautiful song that kind of creeps up on you.
“Little Bombardier” is strange song about a former solider who befriends two young children and was inspired by Uncle Ernest a short story by Alan Sillitoe. The protagonist, Frankie Mear, befriends the kids “at the picture house” where he spends much of his time. This use of the cinema as a place representing escapism and joy would be used much more effectively in the 1971 song “Life on Mars”. An unusual little number that I’m not quite sure what to make of.
“Silly Boy Blue” demonstrates Bowie’s burgeoning interest in Buddhism and Eastern philosophy and was incorrectly named “Silly Boy Blues” on the back cover of the American release of this album. Eastern philosophy was quite trendy at this point in the mid-sixties but the young Bowie was more dedicated than most visiting the Tibet House in London in 1966 to speak with one of its teachers, Chime Yong Dong Rinpoche, the two would become friends and over the next 50 years Bowie would often come to him to seek advice and guidance.
“Come and Buy My Toys” is one of the album’s most straightforward songs featuring just vocals, bass, and acoustic guitar. Another nostalgic song presenting an idealistic picture of youth before the toils of adulthood start to take hold. While most of Bowie’s early folk recordings tend to be influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan this song appears to be reminiscent of the type of music Simon and Garfunkel were making at the time.
In a mocking mood “Join the Gang” is a critique of London hippies dismissing the flower children of swinging London’s attitude towards alcohol, LSD, weed and all the young people “doing nothing very fast”. Bowie’s early attitudes towards drugs and alcohol is interesting to note when you consider how fully he later embraced them throughout the 1970s.
An interesting tune is “She’s Got Medals” which has
Bowie challenging gender roles for the first time, possibly a forebearer to his
androgenous future. The song tells the story of a girl named Mary who changes
her name to Tommy and joins the army, fighting on the frontline she is
supposedly killed but it’s not true as she deserted the night before to return
home and became a woman once again. It’s hard to know what exactly Bowie is
trying to say with this one, maybe trying to work some stuff out.
“Maid of Bond Street” is another portrait London life however it’s much more sympathetic than “Join the Gang” as Bowie described the “girl made of loneliness”. The short track demonstrates Bowie’s own identification as the odd one out, whenever he writes about the culture surrounding him it’s as an outsider looking in whereas after he achieves success and takes on his Ziggy Stardust persona, he presents himself as a trendsetter and a culture maker.
The album ends with the bleak monologue “Please Mr. Gravedigger” about a child murderer who plots to kill the Gravedigger who knows of his misdeeds. It’s eerie and spooky and some claim it was inspired by the Moor murders carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley who were convicted the year before for sexually assaulting and killing five children between 1963 and 1965.
This album is far from perfect but for people who are
interested in the story and legacy of David Bowie it certainly is interesting. It’s
bursting with ideas, styles, and genres. However, it never quite manages to figure out
exactly what it wants to be, but in a way that’s part of the enjoyment of it. If
you can view it as an experiment, as an artist starting to come into their own,
as the first step of an incredible journey that would last 50 years, then I
think you can take something from this album. It’s not a masterpiece and
unfortunately for Bowie it had the disadvantage of being released on the same
day as the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, so did it
ever really stand a chance?
Luckily Bowie would find a way to hone all this creatively into more commercially successful projects, landing his first big hit with “Space Oddity” two years later in 1969. But more on that next time.
David Bowie (1967) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ [5/10]
Bonus Track: "The Laughing Gnome"
While not actually on the album I think this novelty song recorded around the time needs to at least get a mention. The song features Bowie meeting and conversing with a gnome, the gnome delivers a number of puns with a sped-up chipmunk like voice. The song later became an unlikely hit in 1973 after the success of Ziggy Stardust and reached number 6 in the UK charts. In 1990 Bowie announced that the set list for his upcoming tour would be decided by fans via telephone voting , but when it looked like this song would have to be played that idea was scrapped. It’s not the best song but in light of the level of regard and critical acclaim Bowie would later garner it is a funny footnote in his incredible career.
Click here to listen to an audio version of this review on Spotify
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