We Are The Dead. this is just the most incredible thing. i do not own diamond dogs, but will Very soon. but it is beautiful, haunting and epic. i just sit in my car and listen to it again and agian.
Alors mes persons, what do yall think of this song i think it sounds like it could of come off heroes or something more developmental.
i havnt even processed the lyrics fully to interpret. in fact i am so enthralled by the song that i cannot begin to.
any thoughts or feelings.
included, a particularly interesting piece of the song.Oh, dress yourself, my urchin one, for I hear them on the rails
Because of all we've seen, because of all we've said
We are the dead




When I needed soul revival
I called your name

It's hard for me to call DD an 'epic',cause I feel that to achieve epic staus, an album must come from the heart. This was a failed rock-opera whatever album. I do love the album, but the fact it was written lyrically by cut and paste methods, bothers me. Now heroes used Eno's OBLIQUE STRATEGIES, but if you've ever used these cards, you know they don't solve anything, they just give you possible ways of approacing a problem. And then the bulk of Earthling was written by putting words into a pc, and randomly spitting them out, that also bothers me.

'im scared to touch, too tense to be undone'

I don't know why that should bother you, Isolar_. I thought that's one reason we all like Bowie. He does things different.

call me sentimental Iso.

'im scared to touch, too tense to be undone'

We Are The Dead has always been a favorite of mine. It's one of those songs that you can listen to and not listen to the lyrics (like an Eno song) and still get that feeling of urgentcy and love. However, if you listen to the lyrics they're absolutely beautiful and compelling, "It's the theatre of financiers / Count them, fifty 'round a table / White and dressed to kill." Yet also simplistic, "I love you in your fuck-me pumps."

Sorry, I'm a bit obsessed today so I should stop now.

I'm not going to call it an epic, but that's not because it's not from the heart. While I'm not convinced that we can accurately gauge what is and is not in the writer's heart (i.e. some calculation seems to be necessary), it would be the thematic material, not the writer's attitude, that would make an epic, as far as I can tell.

Also -- and I don't mean this to be a loophole -- Bowie doesn't bind himself to use cut/paste methods, does he? I assume if he wouldn't use results if he didn't like them.

chimi chimi chimi, cello cello cello...

I like it; may I suggest it could be the key song on the Diamond Dogs album? (Perhaps I hear it in this way because it's the only song I hadn't heard, elsewhere or on live recordings, when I bought DD.) My only explanation is that -- and I suppose Suite Thing works in a similar way -- it fills in the conceptual gaps. The final songs are more straightforward Orwell (relatively speaking, that is) and the singles are more Bowiesque (that's why they were singles). There are a lot of lyrics, which are prime material for Interpretation, although I'm not about to do the job. Even half-heard, they're a must for the sake of conceptual continuity.

PS Perhaps Radiohead listened before making Subterranean Homesick Alien?

chimi chimi chimi, cello cello cello...

I love Subterranean Homesick Alien! If Bowie used the same technique as Radiohead did for SHA, then I will certainly have to look for DD.

Big fish eat the little ones...big fish eat the little ones... -Radiohead

I love We Are The Dead as well. Everytime I listen to it the song is stuck in my head for days. I think that it has a type of vulgar, irresistable beauty, kind of like Ziggy Stardust himself. The line "defacating ecstasy" makes me shiver but it is one of my favorite lines in that song, the other one being "I love you in your fuck-me pumps".

I'm a phallus in pigtails.

We Are The Dead is my favorite one on Diamond Dogs, and in the top ten overall. I love it, the lyrics are excellent, the music itself is perfect with the lyrics.


You - are not a victim
You - just scream with boredom
You - are not evicting time