When Bowie announced his forthcoming Glass Spider tour, If I remember correctly, he said that the show would tell a "story" or have a theme running through it.

I was listening to the Montreal show the other day and decided to listen to the "spoken" bits between the songs -and try to work out what they saying/telling.

Here is my transcript of the spoken bits:

They get cluster - Instantagious
Four Teenagers in a car
They fixed hose pipes from the exhaust into the windows – did you hear me
Right there in a cluster
You’re just not good enough
You’re just not educated and cooperative
and you’re not allowed to talk about nothing
cause you’re made from the wrong stuff
wrong stuff (chanted)
…Up the Hill Backwards

She says real friends don’t walk over real friends
She (can’t make it out)
I will be back when you get it together
I don’t intend to fall – it will be an accident
You mean you don’t live like that?
No
You’re not a friend?
Yes
We can’t have rock stars cross breeding with normal people
…Absolute Beginners

Ugly Time
Like falling on a knive
Ugly Time
Friends taking their life
Ugly Time
Like Government men
Beating on the door like a new future plan
Then there’s Thor son of Odin, undergod, heir of the realm eternal, the mightiest warrior in the nine worlds
…Fashion

I want to punch a whole in the sky
(foreign translation)
I want to touch the future
(foreign translation)
It’s chicken and feathers
(foreign translation)
It’s Rock n Roll
It’s like kissing a blow torch
(foreign translation)
It’s Rock n Roll
She doesn’t take lovers she takes hostages
(foreign translation)
It’s Rock n Roll
It’s madness
… All the Madmen


end of Big Brother…
Operators are standing by
(I can’t make out the next few lines)
… Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family)

Can any one help me with the missing bits?
And can anyone help explain them??

PS I notice that by Canada, Bowie was getting tired of the "pantomime" and that there were less spoken pieces between songs, Big Brother was the last and that was only half way through the show. Does anyone know what was removed?



Tell them they can laugh at me

In reply to:

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She says real friends don’t walk over real friends
She (can’t make it out)

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Haven't heard the concert for years, but I think the line is something like:

She be your prize for being coolest.

This narrative came after Bang bang, which was a great performance.

During Bang bang, Bowie picks a girl "at random" from the audience to dance with him. The way she acted when she reached the stage would have led most of the crowd to have assumed she had never met Bowie before. She ends up dancing like a professional by the end of the song.

The narrative explains that it was all a trick and Bowie wouldn't have danced/lived with an ordinary member of the audience, hence "We can’t have rock stars cross breeding with normal people".

bye tr

trendy's trainpage is at http://www.geocities.com/trendy_rechauffe

"No peachy prayers, no trendy rechauffé
I'm with you so I can't go on"

G.B.A.

..and wasn't the dancer Melissa Hurley who Bowie dated before remembering his own line "We can’t have rock stars cross breeding with normal people"

Tell them they can laugh at me

In reply to:

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PS I notice that by Canada, Bowie was getting tired of the "pantomime" and that there were less spoken pieces between songs, Big Brother was the last and that was only half way through the show. Does anyone know what was removed?

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Even more were removed during the course of the tour. By Australia, where the Glass Spider Video was filmed. By that time, the last two dialogues had been dropped, and All The Madmen, Big Brother and Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family (at least) had been dropped.


Zane, Zane, Zane,
Mange le chien

In reply to:

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By that time, the last two dialogues had been dropped, and All The Madmen, Big Brother and Chant Of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family (at least) had been dropped.

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Those songs were played at the Sydney show I saw which was just before or after the one filmed for the video. I'd say the video just had them edited out.

bye tr

trendy's trainpage is at http://www.geocities.com/trendy_rechauffe

"No peachy prayers, no trendy rechauffé
I'm with you so I can't go on"

G.B.A.

Wonder who the idiot woman singing along in all the songs on the Glass Spider live video is. She spools most of the entertainment. Wasn't it possible to edit her out?

I was always looking left and right!

In reply to:

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Wonder who the idiot woman singing along in all the songs on the Glass Spider live video is. She spools most of the entertainment. Wasn't it possible to edit her out?

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I've wondered that myself. She's just sooooooooooo annoying. And they seemed to have been filming especially her. I wonder who she is. I'd be ashamed.


Bowie-Eno is Finnish for Uncle Bowie

this won't add much to the discussion, but

In reply to:

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Ugly Time
Like Government men
Beating on the door like a new future plan

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still makes me laugh like nothing else in the world

oh by jingo

In reply to:

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You’re just not educated and cooperative

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You're just not educated proper

In reply to:

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She (can’t make it out)

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She'd be your prize for being coolest.

In reply to:

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You’re not a friend?

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edit: I just remembered the exhange. Melissa inquires, "It's all a trick?"

"Yes!" Bowie replies.

Then the group intones: "We can't have rock stars cross-breeding with normal people."

So Bowie marries Iman.

I think I'll make a point to repeat all this nonsense on my deathbed, just to mix it up a little.

"What were poppa's last words?"

"Um, 'It's chicken and feathers! It's rock and roll! It's like kissing a blowtorch! It's rock and roll!'"

"Oh. Where's the will?"

____
Kid, you've paid your dues...dues and dues. ~J. Tweedy

Edited by power2charm on 05/05/07 11:14 AM (server time).

The best I can come up with is that the dialogue loosely follows the plight of teenagers that have grown up on the wrong side of town and whom were possibly orphans.

The opening track 'Glass Spider' is about maternal abandonment. The second track 'Day in Day Out' also suggests this (she was born in a handbag.....love left on a doorstep) before tracing her trajectory as she grows older.

Some of the more coherant text.....

In reply to:

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You’re just not good enough
You’re just not educated properly
and you’re not allowed to talk about nothing
cause you’re made from the wrong stuff

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....describes how their upbringing (poor education, percieved lower class) comes back to stunt them. The song that follows describes their struggle (Up The Hill Backwards) as does some of 'Day In Day Out' which describes the difficulties faced by the central female character.

Some of her friends, it appears are about to commit suicide (four teenagers in a car.....they fixed hose pipes from the exhaust into the windows) - and later again (Ugly Time, Friends taking their life).

The reference to "Government men beating on the door" could be the same authorities in 'Day In Day Out' (in the video, the police and army arrive at her home).


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