I just realized something, but I'm not sure if it means anything, and, if so, what. In I am With Name, toward the end, just before the repeat of "Anxiety Descending," there is the sound of a live audience and someone screaming "Give it to me one more time!"

It seemed somewhat familiar, but I was unable to place it. Earlier today I was listening to Queen's Hammer to Fall, and noticed that, at the very end, Freddie Mercury screams "Give it to me one more time!" in the same way (without the screaming crowd, at least not on the version of the song I was listening to, which was a studio track--not a live recording).

Anyone know if Bowie sampled Freddie on I Am With Name. If so, why? Does it help with the interpretation of the song, or with the interpretation of 1. Outside in general?

Here are the lyrics to Queen's Hammer To Fall:

Here we stand or here we fall
History won't care at all
Make the bed light the light
Lady Mercy won't be home tonight yeah

You don't waste no time at all
Don't hear the bell but you answer the call
It comes to you as to us all
We're just waiting
For the hammer to fall

Oh ev'ry night and every day
A little piece of you is falling away
But lift your face the Western Way
Build your muscles as your body decays yeah

Toe your line and play their game yeah
Let the anaesthetic cover it all
Till one day they call your name
You know it's time for the hammer to fall

Rich or poor or famous
For your truth it's all the same (oh no oh no)
Lock your door the rain is pouring
Through your window pane (oh no)
Baby now your struggle's all in vain

For we who grew up tall and proud
In the shadow of the mushroom cloud
Convinced our voices can't be heard
We just wanna scream it louder and louder louder

What the hell we fighting for?
Just surrender and it won't hurt at all
You just got time to say your prayers
While your waiting for the hammer to hammer to fall

It's gonna fall
Hammer..you know..hammer to fall
Waiting for the hammer to fall now baby
While you're waiting for the hammer to fall

Give it to me one more time!

Anyone care to interpret the connection between I Am With Name and Hammer to Fall? 1. Outside still confounds me, and it is the hardest Bowie work to unravel.

I'd appreciate hearing anyone's musings.

Zigbot

Indeed, Bowie sampled Hammer to Fall but not the original Freddie version but Brian May's live version - hence the crowd noise.

Unfortunately I am unable to explain why he did this.

I'm invisible and dumb,
no-one will recall me

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Indeed, Bowie sampled Hammer to Fall but not the original Freddie version but Brian May's live version - hence the crowd noise.

Unfortunately I am unable to explain why he did this.

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Because he's Bowie.



YOU'RE WEARING A MASK

Wasn't the I Am With Name song/clip part of the unreleased Outside stuff that found daylight earlier this year? I'm guessing that an awful lot of the original material was hacked into pieces to squash it down onto a single CD, and that there may have further clues / references from the Queen song later on.

But Bowie's renowned for referencing or half-referencing songs/films in his work. Poor Ruskie's interpretation of the Jump They Say video has mustered only 3 replies thanks to Bowie's wilfully obscure choice in French movies.

My guess is that the lyrics and a good deal of the mixing of the song were already complete before Bowie added the Queen excerpt. I think Eno's strategy cards are to blame.

Looking at the lyrics of both songs, maybe Bowie's trying to infer that Baby Grace was clobbered to death with a hammer. Or that Freddie Mercury was 'an apeman with metal parts'.

and santa claus is drunk... in the ski room

Actually, I Am With Name was not an unreleased track, but one that's been on 1. Outside all along.

I like the part about inferring Baby Grace was hammered to death and Freddie is an apeman with metal parts. LOL.

I also agree with you that Bowie often does stuff for no reason whatsoever, and then the rest of us try to impart meaning on it all. So it very well could be one of Eno's infamous cards, after all. One that reads: "Insert live snippet from band influenced by Bowie music."

Anyway, I think the reason (if there is one) for including a line from Hammer to Fall in I Am With Name is the reference in Hammer to Fall on when one's name is called (i.e., when one's "number is up" and one dies:

Toe your line and play their game yeah
Let the anaesthetic cover it all
Till one day they call your name
You know it's time for the hammer to fall

I always wondered if there was time warping going on in 1. Outside. What with Leon slashing zeroes in the fabric of time and all. I always wondered if the series of events surrounding Baby Grace's murder were jumbled up so that there were timing inaccuracies (on purpose).

Another reason for including the Hammer to Fall reference is that the above-quoted lines from the song also suggest the "interest drugs" that Ramona A. Stone would use to keep people in a half/dead-half/alive state.

No answers, just more questions, I guess. Which is what Outside is best at producing.


Zigbot

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Does it help with the interpretation of the song, or with the interpretation of 1. Outside in general?

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No.
Nobody can interpret Outside.
Really.


Just because I believe don't mean I don't think as well

Thanks, Blooby! I'll quit trying.

Zigbot

Zigbot, there is no point trying to interpret Outside trying to get to the truth, because it doesnt have any single ultimate resolution, its pulp fiction. In fact i reckon Bowie wrote it with interpretation in mind! So you should just fire away! Anyway for what its worth i find your interpretive posts interesting.

Thanks LaughingGnoome, I have to tell you that one of the best parts about TW is reading your interpretations. Don't mean to gush and all, but you have an interesting way of looking at things and I immensely enjoy reading your posts!


As for Outside, I've read that Bowie used some sort of a computer program where he fed different words or entire lines to it, and then it jumbled them up, and then he'd feed the jumbled-up output into the program again, and he continued doing this over and over until the lyrics to some of the songs came together in a way that he liked.

So I am quite inclided to think there is no TRUTH to Outside. It isn't Rubik's Cube, and there is no ONE solution. Makes interpretation fun, though. This isn't one I can touch with a 10-foot pole, though. Still too complicated, and I don't have that much time on my hands.

I really have enjoyed many of the Outside interpretation posts here on TW--in fact I've actually PRINTED a few threads out, with this goofy idea that one day I'll have the time to sit down and listen to Outside repeatedly--alongside the Diary of Nathan Adler and the TW interpretation posts--and actually "crack the code" to this album. Ha! Wishful thinking!

In addition to loving Bowie and his music, I also enjoy all the fun his work let's US--his fans--have in trying to figure it all out.

Keep interpreting away, man! I read your stuff with baited breath.

Zigbot

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In addition to loving Bowie and his music, I also enjoy all the fun his work let's US--his fans--have in trying to figure it all out.

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Wouldnt it just be the fly in our mushroom soup, if the thin one turned around one day and explained that Loving The Alien, was about ET? And Sweet Thing was about chocolate?

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Still too complicated, and I don't have that much time on my hands.

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Neither do i! Usually.

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Keep interpreting away, man! I read your stuff with baited breath.

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I have been Humbled, by your words.