Loving the Bowie Voice(s), Playlist 3: In the Center of it All…His Eyes

Blog

0

Loving the Bowie Voice(s), Playlist 3: In the Center of it All…His Eyes

by sandraphflowers

“Do remember, I’ve only got one [eye] anyway. Fortunately, that’s the one that works….The other one has just become a little more decorative than it was before.” David Bowie to an unknown assailant while having a lollipop stick removed from his eye during a concert.

David Bowie enriched our lives with so many captivating singing voices that one might forget that his speaking voice is every bit as easy on the ears. With that thought in mind, I’ve made this playlist a combination of songs and interviews. Keeping everything together—the voices, the songs, the interviews—are, what else? Those fascinating eyes “in the center of it all.”

Since Bowie’s eyes are the unifying feature of this playlist, it would be fitting to start with his account of how they came to be different colors. The brief 1987 interview, David Bowie Talks About His Different Eyes , represented by the center photo above, summarizes the story.

Bowie assures us here that his eyes are the same color. However, eyes change color—or appear to change color, if only in hue or intensity—for varied reasons. They can even change independently of each other, as in Bowie’s case, in response to lighting, camera angles, mood, songs being performed, eye make-up, and clothing colors. You’ll see many such changes throughout the playlist.

THE SONGS

From left to right on the left side of the center photo above are more photos representing “Oh You Pretty Things,” “As the World Falls Down,” and “Valentine’s Day,” all recorded within a 42-year span. In each case, the eyes take on the personality of the song and its voice.

Oh You Pretty Things (1972) begins with a cozy vision of domestic tranquility –“Wake up you sleepyhead / Put on some clothes / Get out of bed”—only to segue into visions of an alarming future—hands reaching through cracked skies in a world where “Homo sapiens have outgrown their use.” Several of Bowie’s earlier songs (such as Space Oddity) establish other-worldliness as a recurring theme in his music. In “Oh You Pretty Things,” lyrics delivered in a wide-ranging tenor accompanied by a comparable wide-ranging but fairly noncommittal gaze give the lyrics a “Don’t-say-I-didn’t-warn-you” finality. We also notice in this song that both eyes appear to be the same color when the singer looks directly into the camera. But exactly what is that color?

As the World Falls Down (1986) turns Snow White and Prince Charming’s chaste waltz out to pasture in favor of a steamy, mesmerizing seduction. As soon as Sarah’s spellbound eyes meet Jareth’s “Come hither” ones, she’s a goner (at least for a while, anyway). Only problem is that instead of the happily-ever-after future awaiting Snow White and her prince, all Jareth can look forward to after the ball is a never-ever-after separation from the girl-turned-woman he’s fallen in love with. Knowing this, even as he bares his soul in a sensuous, aching song of courtship, his kingly eyes reveal the heartache of knowing that as much as he—and perhaps Sarah as well–might wish otherwise, “Tonight is all.”

Valentine’s Day (2013) unforgettably tells the tragic story of a teenager on a shooting rampage. Natural actor that he is, Bowie convincingly portrays, with only one prop and scarcely any setting, the troubled youth stalking hallways in search of prey. A stern, tenor voice alternates between melancholy and angry to convey the story line as mime-like gestures, a headless guitar suggestive of a rifle, and close-ups of Bowie’s impassioned eyes reinforce the tone. Erratic, blurry camera shots and angles leave viewers free to supply their own imagery, a much more effective technique than a gory display of blood and bodies. In the center of it all are Valentine/Bowie’s feverish mismatched eyes glaring menacingly at us.

THE INTERVIEWS

Beginning immediately to your right of the center photo above are three others taken from interviews spanning 18 years of Bowie’s career. The first two show Bowie’s legendary cool under adversarial circumstances, while the last two (both listed in #3 below) unfold comfortably and without conflict.

David Bowie Interview on the Russell Harty Show, Part 1 (1975). British talk-show host Russell Harty interviewed Bowie twice, each time going out of his way to treat his guest in a crude, baiting, insulting, derisive manner. Here, in this first part of his final Harty interview, Bowie, understandably, gets irritated at the older man several times but each time throws shade at Harty just by being his own gentlemanly, intelligent self.
David Bowie Rips into MTV for not Spotlighting Black Artists (1983). Bowie used his status and prestige to bring this matter to public attention. Note the steadfast gaze throughout the interview. And wouldn’t we just love to know what he’s thinking as the camera, unbeknownst to him, moves in for that intrusive close-up! There’s more to this story, though, as you’ll see in the next two interviews. In the meantime, it should be noted that some black artists resented Bowie’s intervention. Others, such as R&B Grammy Award winner and trendsetter Rick James, applauded it. James had been fighting this battle on his own, since other black artists wouldn’t join him in speaking publicly about the issue (Why It Took MTV so Long to Play Black Music Videos).
David Bowie’s 1993 Interview with MTV and David Bowie MTV Interview 1993 from Italian TV. Bowie and MTV eventually reconciled and recorded a number of significant interviews in subsequent years. How ironic, then, that MTV decided not to offer tribute of any kind to Bowie at its 2016 Video Music Awards ceremony just eight months after his death. Neither did the network recognize Prince, who died a little more than three months after Bowie. Adding insult to injury, Prince was among the few black artists featured on MTV at the time of Bowie’s famous call-out. These are inexcusable snubs which MTV can neither live down nor make amends for. What fans can do, however, is use whatever means make sense to them to call MTV out on its disrespect of two brilliant artists. For the moment, I myself am calling MTV out by putting back in circulation these two interviews in which Bowie explains his ties to black artists, their music, their culture, and the role these ties and artists played in influencing and shaping his own life’s work.

__________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for exploring this playlist. If you’ve enjoyed it, please share and like it on Facebook or Twitter. Also, follow me on Twitter @sandraphflowers for more Bowie content and other interesting information. Leaving you with one of David’s favorite concert closings, “Thank you and God bless.”