Added: 4 years ago
From: antrorc
Views: 57,647
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:
see all

All Comments (189)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • Straordinario esempio di classe superiore nella stesura della composizione. Bowie sembra attingere a Dylan da una parte, ma in fondo risulta credibile e genuino perchè credo questo pezzo sia molto sentito dal nostro eroe. La canzone cambia in un crescendo davvero molto emozionante e poi nel finale esplode nel dichiarare quello che tutti veorremmo fare: noi vogliamo vivere....Grandissimo David.

  • This song is ultimate Bowie. He was touched with genius when he wrote it. He surpassed all his contemporaries becoming a literary agent of the times (Reed, Mott, Warhol Roxy, Stones-they only could hold his apron strings and watch greatness before them.

  • @mediascribble Bowie was barely 20 when writing this amazing stuff as well as doing his own arrangements and playing the various instruments.

    If there is true genius in music, he was that at a young age.

  • Comment removed

  • he started a academy for those with little talant  and guess the rest

  • The first alternative music song.

  • This song and "We are Hungry Men" both give an interesting glimpse into Bowie's political mindset back in the late 60's

  • Absolutley his best ever!

  • Whenever I run into someone I haven't seen in a while, I always quote this song when they ask me what how things have been.

    "So much has gone and little is new"

  • If I recall, as a 55 year old Bowie fan this was written as a song of his betrayal of the group (not musical) that he was with as the time

  • do what though wilt shall be the whole of the law..love is the law..love under will

  • Acabo de saber de fuente bien informada (uno de los componentes) que el grupo español de los 80´s y primeros 90´s Comité Cisne tomaron el nombre del título de esta canción

  • @cgdpedraza gracias por el aporte!

  • Can you even imagine a 10 minute song like this being played on the radio nowdays? Or perhaps... that he starts his career now. We would probably have never heard of him. Nor things like: Bat out of Hell, For Crying Out Loud, Ping Floyd... What saddens me is... that the music great as this must be somewhere out there. There must be still people like Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, David Gilmour, Nick Jagger, Pat Metheny at the verge of their careers... and we will never hear their music.

  • @dziabdak The names are Pink (not Ping) Floyd and Mick Jagger (not Nick) - but I get your point.

    Thing is, there IS great music out there now, but one has to actively SEARCH for it. Brilliant contemporary recording artists are rarely played on mainstream radio these days.

    Try Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Portishead, Muse, Mumford and Sons, Sigur Ros etc., if you want to listen to some great 'modern' artists/bands whose work is already well known.

  • @LantaGem

    Oh, this is so humilating. I must have been really drunk while posting the comment. I have absolutely no idea how I misspelled the names.

  • The boy blessed us madly.

  • So haunting yet jovial. David Bowie made such good music, he took you on his very own journey. Reminded me of a bunch of my favorite artists...The Beatles, Johnny Cash, Nirvana, Neil Young...love the vibe of his music.

  • The best thing David Bowie ever recorded!

  • this song is even more relavent today than it was then. a true timeless classic

  • bloody wonderful

  • We hit it off so well after another visit busizz4me.info

  • Capolavoro assoluto dell'ars bowiana.Dylanizzato al meglio, David crede e vive davvero le sue canzoni al di là del potenziale commerciale.Qui il crescendo è legato al testo che sottolinea la totale incapacità della razza umana a ...vivere.All'epoca poteva apparire una canzone all'avanguardia ma oggi evoca ancora i drammi dell'uomo (e David l'ha scritta solo nel 1969!!!!).Stupenda.

  • I love this song

  • is there a live version anywhere?

  • This song and others like it is why we love bowies music

  • have always adored this song

  • To me the lyrics of this song are about the futility of believing completeley and blindly in anyone thing or anyone person. I don't think its aimed at Christianity, Fascism or Comuunism, just at those who blindly follow without thinking.

  • Yessss, maybe my favorite of all time - still makes me cry sometimes after 30+ years of hearing it. Did he ever perform this song live or on TV, I have searched and searched. Would love to actually see him performing it. Anyone out there with some rare unknown live bootleg version - Please Post!

  • An absolute epic of a masterpiece, that I can't really imagine any artists of today having the patience, nor the talent to sit down and write a song like this! Fantastic!

  • @CameraJams

    Try Steve Harley

    Sebastion or death trip

  • @dfg297lpopdirk - Hello, I know Steve Harley of Cockney Rebel of course, good to know they were/are touring again in 2010. The others you mention, I have not heard, but will check them out. Thanks

  • The music sounds sort of medieval and his voice is almost angelic on this song. I think the lyrics have something to do with christianity. Thats how it sounds to me anyway.

  • @Skulldini Certainly the harpsichord gives it a Medieval flavour. Definitely a strong element of faith, trial and tribulation running through the lyric narrative. You could identify this with with Christianity as well as other faiths. I think Bowies best lyrical writing period was before he was hugely successful. I also see a political/revolutionary dimension in it. I regard this as his masterpiece composition although the business men wouldn't agree.

  • I think this song is overlooked because its almost 10 minutes. This song blew my mind when I was 13 and it still sounds fantastic.

  • @travisrlel

    yessssssssssssssssssssssssssss­!yesssssssssssssssssssssss!

  • yes , is an amazing song, music , lyrics and of course the unique voice of Sir Bowie. i love it.

  • Yes, it's amazing with amazing lyrics!!

  • i agree! this is his best song!

  • one of his very best songs!

  • Can only be described as buried treasure.

  • Psychedelic Bowie!!! I'm too happy, I might float away.... : )

  • Listen closely have things changed that much in 40 years,no still the same small minded attitudes,please heed the words of this masterpiece and wake up.

  • The lyrics always had me imagining some kind of George Orwell 1984 world.

    And a ''love machine'' was a name for a tank in this world, runbling through shattered streets, ploughing down man, woman, listening to its command, but not hearing anymore.

    The lyrics are awsome.

  • i think it reflects his disillusionment or someone else's disillusionment with left wing politics. but what really like is the way the song gradually spirals up.

  • @nyusedbooks Another suggestion by critics is that this was written as a response to his experiences in trying to start a Beckenham Arts Lab project (I think it was 1970). He found that the people who turned up weren't interested in contributing.

  • @penrhyndeundraeth - possiblity, unfortunately I was only eight years old in 1970, and didnt take up the guitar till I was eleven,... I would have turned up otherwise. oh, and I lived in Beckenham. The arts studio was a room in the back of the Three Tuns pub (now a Zili fish restuarant).. oh well

  • Because of you I need to rest, because it's you that sets the test!

  • Name dropping Kick Out The Jams ,how cool is that ? Genius

  • love machine and desolation row are also name drops!

  • 'The silent guns of love will blast the sky' - What an epic classic of a song! I can't think of anybody nowadays, who is as lyrically talented as this.

    I'm not talking about people like Dylan, but modern artists. Are there any?

  • No, there are`nt and likes of Dylan,Bowie aren`t going to be replaced ,when they`re gone they`re gone :(

  • I don't profess to know all songs by modern artists, but I really cant think of anybody at all nowadays, who would even consider writing an epic work such as this! Even if they

    were that talented, which is not impossible, but I can't see anybody of Bowie's calibre coming along very often. It's likely that in a couple of hundred years, people will look

    upon his work the same way that people look upon the works of Mozart and Beethoven now.

  • This is where Im at, . . . in "Greater Roswell " New Mexico , the land of mystery, space travel, good buds, more rock bands than anyone would believe, . . . this song drove me here from ontario, . . . in 1982, and it still sounds great, . . .

  • I have been a Bowie fan for 30yrs plus this the finest work he has ever done,listen hard amazing lyrics,just picture yourself in the song.Only people who realy love music will understand this song because you listen.Amazing song

  • 6:47 - 9:36 may be one of my favorite segments from any Bowie song.

  • I imagine very few understand what he's actually saying here.

  • thanks dad....you know a classic when you hear one. love ya......xxx

  • this makes me rember of my crush :( it SUCKz BUT good SONG!!!!!!!! <3 it!!!!!!

  • this is one of the BEST onez he did!!!!!!! :D

  • This is an amazing song.

  • This has always been one of my favourite Bowie songs. I don't understand why it is so overlooked. Clearly much better than the Space Oddity.

  • @ivankaramasov completely agree. The lyrics is unlike anything else I have ever heard. Its an overload of brilliance

  • @ivankaramasov I agree with you ! Extraordinary!

  • @ivankaramasov  While I agree with you 100%, still, de gustibus non est disputandum..

  • @ivankaramasov Part of the reason it's so overlooked is because of its anti-utopianism. Indeed, this is the greatest anti-utopian song ever written. Utopianism kills. Bowie knew it. For example, when we hear "We can force you to be free," we're hearing the language of Rousseau and the horrid French Revolution. Same with the line, "We slit the Catholic throat." Much more could be said about the anti-utopianism of this song.

  • @Jitpring Let's face it, at nearly 10 min. this song would hardly ever get radio play, if ever. You would have to buy the album (CD. Whatever.) to ever hear this song or find it here.

    As far as "Utopianism kills", you have hit it on the head, my friend.

  • always overlooked this song for some reason ,now ive give it a good listen i feel an idiot for ignoring such a gem :D

  • totally pretentious but still fucking brilliant- what a bastard bowie is for composing such emotive works !( only joking dave if your reading this-) actually i hope you are reading this then you can write something amazing again.............. come on times running out ..... for everyone..........

  • "totally pretentious" dont use words withuoght knowing what they mean. i would say this song evereything but pretentious. asong about a dis utopian societey what a great subject matter in many reflecting our "pretentious" societey. u moron

  • stop taking me seriously- i was only joking- i'm probably a bigger bowie fan than you- you obviously don't have a sense of humour- this has been my fav song since 1979- and don't call me a moron you fucking arsehole

  • yeah well the first line of your somment was not written as a joke. so what if your a bowie fan does not prove that have grabbed the essence of his music.

  • Awesome, my favourite song.

  • Thanks for uploading this, I haven't heard it since high school!

    This is the song I recited the lyrics to at a drama presentation for the retired set; still wonder what they must have thought...

  • Think thats great and who cares what 'They' thought to yr drama presentation - I did the same with Bowies

    'Five Year's' - used the lyrics and wrote an essay in my last year at school and won the First prize which because I was 16 and a rebel I refused to accept on prize giving night which caused a storm ! Thing was I knew I had it in the bag so I didn't need the school telling me - It is a beautiful lyric which he must have written at what ? 18-19 years old thats talent

  • Tell me, why is this song so relatively unknown? It is easily the most romantic he ever wrote.

  • I really agree with you!!

  • romantic? i thought it was pessimistic maybe your right romantic expression of sadness

  • love this track - bowie's blake moment....

  • this song was wrote for me .

  • I won our schools 5th year's award for english( they didn'nt know i had Bowie's help) - not this track but I used his lyrics from 'Five Years' to write a peice using David's cut up method to come up with a peice that won - Like a fool(I feel know) I neither kept the 3 pages I wrotre and as a bigger fool - A rebellious teen I refused to collect the prize

  • Hahah, I've made many poems inspired by Bowie, including this song :D I would say this is my personal favourite ever.

  • Nice to hear from you,Keep writing your poetry - all my English schoolwork was inspired by David Bowie esp the cut up method which I found hard to master,but later on you find it's easier,then you read the author's who inspired him,Burrough's

    in particularly - his books brilliant as they are are not cut up more like ripped up and thrown aroud a room and out the window - collected later and somehow peiced together to make a novel the process called' cut up' -

  • Mine too. I got to ask him about the meaning  of it once, during a live interview on radio.

  • Comment removed

  • thay dont make em like this eby more

  • it's hard to find acid

  • this is a song for today . this is one of my favorites from bowie .

  • Some of the best lyrics ever written, and that bassline seriously fucks with my head. nice

  • bowie at his best !!!

  • "Where money stood we planted seeds of rebirth"

    Great Poem!

  • antrorc, thank you for giving us this hard- to-find but awesome song

  • it aint hard to find- its on space oddity!

  • yes, of course, and I owned that record in the early 80's, but I was so glad to find that song on You tube and lissen to it again !

  • We broke the ruptured structure built of age

    Our weapons were the tongues of crying rage

    Where money stood we planted seeds of rebirth

    And stabbed the backs of fathers, sons of dirt

  • always been one of my favorite bowie songs but i dont like the line on 6.00 " and we slit the catholic throat" as i am a catholic,but since its bowie....i dont mind

  • It wasd not meant in ill intent. Listen to it close. He is a good man. Peace on,,,,,,,,,

  • thanks antrorc, so glad this is on you tube, a great song, i couldn't remember what it was called (long time since i heard it),love it.

  • Absolutely brilliant songwriting....

    None of yer Bonos, or yer Pearl Jams, or anyone else ever came close to this.

  • the man was god in the 70's 80,s 90's 2000's long may Bowie reign.

  • raspect brutha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • I love this song. I get hoarse singing it in my car. I particularly love these lines; "I believe in the Power of Good,

    I Believe in the State of Love,

    I Will Fight For the Right to be Right,

    I Will Kill for the Good of the Fight for the Right to be Right". Bowie was definitely ahead of his time.

  • You´re right.

    For singin´in the car a tipp:

    Radar Love. Golden Earring.

  • allways been one of my favorites, i would like to know what Dave had on his mind when he wrote this.

  • probably ingratitude

  • f  a n t a st i c e

  • In this as in many of the Space Oddity songs I can hear the influence of the Beatles circa Strawberry fields. This is also one of my favourite Bowie tracks.

  • This is definitely one of my favourite Bowie songs. It's sad that it's been overshadowed by songs like Space Oddity and Changes.

  • Such an underrated tune.

    I always considered the tragic messiah character in this song the spiritual relative (more likely proto-type) of the Ziggy and Alladin characters.

  • bowie will always be in a class by himself-you cant touch him.

  • nobody ever will either i 'm glad to say

  • Tell it like it is Bowie! Absolutely amazing...

  • fukin fantastic love it

  • best song ever ...

  • epic.

  • Thank you so much for this!

  • This is the easily one of the best Bowie songs of all time. I would easily say its his most underrated song as well. The live version at the BBC is far better than this version in my mind. Its on Bowie at the Beeb.

  • sounds like he is tring to do a Peter Hammill!

  • love bowie for ever and ever !

  • Truly one of a kind this David Bowie. His early songwriting is so brillant.David Bowie is truly musical icon.This song is awesome.This man can flat out write....This song to me sounds much like a song on the album after this one "Saviour Machine" Bowie is a part of my life till I die.....

  • this is my fav bowie song of all time,,i love it......its brilliant

  • This is something that will never be retreived............

  • anyone who likes this sould check out Dillon Campbell...

  • and a meadow with a hot babe!

  • i need shrooms!

  • bowie is beautiful

  • Marry me David!

  • trance

  • There are 4 seamless changes in this song, and there are the Bowie transcending lyrics in this song which sounded so good to me in the 70's.

    It sounds great to me now.

  • ok basically they don`t sound EXACTLY ALIKE !!! I just meant that the general chord structure of these songs sounds VERY SIMILLAR! Still great album. Has the feel.

  • i love this song.

  • This song has always held a special place in my life. I still have it on tape but no tapeplayer so it was great to hear it again. Its still very special. Ah memories..........Thank you

  • a song about the Indian/Pakistan partition and all the ensuing misery

  • brings back a lot of memories - used "and I want to believe in the madness that calls now, and I want to believe there's a light shining through somehow" as my quote in my college yearbook

  • music is wonderful only if it has a political engagement

  • if you seriously think that you must be a pretty boring person that nevee has any fun

  • and you must be a pretty nice fascist

  • totally agree,

    i would even say art is wonderful only if it has a political engagement

  • Art has meaning beyond the political. Even if a witness to art does not pick up on the significance of a particular composition, art itself does get people exposed to other perspectives than their own. If it piques their curiosity, stimulates their interest or simply expands their awareness in the slightest little bit, then something has been gained, whether the person does fully realize the significance of the piece, or they do not.

  • Made my day hearing this again.Awesome

  • wonderful, agree with all the comments, could someone explain me tha background of the lyrics?

    stop fascism!

  • They have to do with Bowie's involvement in the hippy movement. He felt jaded because he was interested and involved for a time, and the movement went in a different direction than he thought it should. So this song is basically a rant directed at them. [I might be confused on this, so I encourage anyone to correct me.]

  • OMG! - If that is true, it is no wonder why I have loved this song ever since I first heard it as a teenager. I went through the same thing with the punk scene. The militancy with which they rejected mainstrean society seemed to me to lead to a counter-culture which alienated people in exactly the same way that the mainstream had - the exact same 'if-you-are-not-enough-like-on­e-of-us-then-you-are-not-accep­table' kind of way. Of course, I couldn't quite explain that feeling at 14.

  • Lyrical background (wiki)

    During 1969 Bowie and then-girlfriend Angela Barnett lived in Beckenham, where they ran the Arts Lab, trying to encourage young people to be creative. However, Bowie soon quit the Arts Lab, when he realized that most people were coming just to see him perform and not to participate. His disappointing encounter with the hippies during this time is the basis for the song, as he felt he was used and abused by the teens: "I gave them my life,They drained my very soul."

  • "...dry"

  • "...dry"

  • Nice view, but for me it is about the need for the human race to believe in a higher power,..and it always makes me cry!!!!! Because im an atheist and realize Our vulnerability in this Cosmos...boo hoo hoo......

  • nice view- makes me sad and feel strange this song still after 30 years-

  • some of his best work from the 70"s

  • Amazing ...never been bettered in my opinion (the man and the song)

  • Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou sooo much for posting this...an absolute classic in every sense of the word. After all these years, it still gives me chills whenever I hear it.

  • well although "Cygnet Comittee" well generally most of the songs on Bowie`s "Space Oddity" album sound incredibly touching and sensuous, man what a song! man what an album is Space Oddity! Great! And even if some songs on this album sound a bit alike, for instance "Cygnet Comittee' reminds me a bit of "Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud" or "God Knows I`m Good" compares to "Letter To Hermoine" I don`t care! It`s all fantastic stuff the "Space Oddity" album and the Cygnet Comittee song itself!

  • Space Odddity is a great record and even though I think it enjoys a blessed consistency of style I disagree with you when it comes to ascertain that "God knows I'm good" and "Letter to Hermione" or "Cygnet C.." annd " Wild Eyed..." sound alike. Anyway, for the rest of what you write I can't but agree. :D

  • Totally agree!! Sapce Oddity is a great record! These songs are haunting.

  • The bowie at the beeb album made me feel so much better when battling with art coursework, but this one is just -STunning.

  • I have heard this a million times and it kills me every time. An absolute classic - love on ya bowie

  • Bowies finest song. I first heard this in 72 during Davids Ziggy Stardust phase. I recommend Jarvis Cocker Running the World on you tube as a co ntinuation.

  • running the world as a continuation of this song?? uhmmm i dont think so

  • This song is the only song I've ever listened to that always makes me cry, no matter how many times I listen to it

  • I don't think I could call this my favorite Bowie song, how could I pick just one...

    BUT

    In my little universe, out of all his songs, THIS one resonates as

    David Bowies Opus...and I treasure it because after all these years and in the midsts of untold worldly horrors

    I still WANT TO BELIEVE

  • wow.

    best friggen song ever

    :]

    lol

    i love staring at tthat one pic the whole song.

  • "I believe in the Power of Good

    I Believe in the State of Love

    I Will Fight For the Right to be Right

    I Will Kill for the Good of the Fight for the Right to be Right"

  • THANKS!!!!

  • Greatest non-hit. Best song. All politicians should listen to this and then...

  • It's a shame that there isn't any footage of Bowie playing this song. It truly is one of his greatest and definitely my all time favorite song of his.

  • If I could express my life with a song Bowie did it for me with this one, thank you so much for the vid!!!Godspeed David Bowie!!!

  • sheer genious

  • I remember singing the line 'they drained my very soul ... dry' to a school friend 20 years ago, trying to convey how Bowie sings it, but failing. It still gives me goose bumps.

  • you're right i think it's the best one

  • Fantastic! Still sounds as good as the day I first heard it, many moons ago!

  • I meant.. one of the best..although most of all are..

  • My favorite bowie song!