Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

(whose lyrics were among those completely written,
according to Bowie, with the Burroughs cut-andpaste
technique) broken by an extended saxophone
solo, introduces a new Bowie voice to the palette,
the crooning coke-lizard basso profundo. Bowie
would employ this one on virtually every album that
would follow. It’s not quite English, vaguely
American, slippery with coke nasal drip but certainly
no less beguiling than any of his other voices. It will
appear later in both “Rock and Roll with Me” (which
actually mentions “lizards lying in the heat”) and “We
Are the Dead” (which contains the cut-and-pastederived
phrase “defecating ecstasy,” perhaps an
argument against the technique?). “Rebel Rebel” is
heralded by a strange, scratchy loop, until that
magnificent riff blasts through. It’s Bowie’s last great
glitter anthem, one for the road for the English Disco
kids on Sunset (where it was played every ten
minutes by the house DJ). It revisits familiar Bowie
territory: a “hot” young “tramp” worrying his/her
parents with his/her sexy nihilism (“You got a few
lines and a handful of ’ludes”). The world is ending,
but who cares, “Rebel” suggests; “we like dancing
and we look divine.” “1984” is slotted in and segues
into the equally Orwellian “Big Brother,” which is one
of those songs where the verses and choruses are
okay but the bridge is a must-hear: “I know you think
you’re awful square / But you’ve made everyone and
you’ve been everywhere,” Bowie sings. (Did the end
of jaded glitter have a better lyrical summation? If so,
I can’t come up with one.) “Don’t live for last year’s