The only problem with this thread is that it's perfect. It feels like whatever I write here, it will just sound really dumb, compared to your thoughts. Anyway... I was just thinking... you talk a lot about the death of Ziggy Stardust. There's the line "when the kids had killed the man, I had to break up the band". You say it "could be interpreted as the fans deserting Ziggy (after electricity is gone) and consequently killing his stardom." Still, it's Bowie/Ziggy himself who says "not only is this the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do."

But you're suggesting that Ziggy didn't kill himself, he was killed by a lack of interest in him? The fans deserted him? You say: "'Give me your hands, cause your wonderful' is Ziggy appeasing his audience before losing them for good."

I guess there are two deaths here. The death of Ziggy in Bowie's story/the album lyrics, and the death of Ziggy the stage character, played by Bowie, which was killed by Bowie. I was just thinking about something I heard Iggy Pop say in a recent interview: "People tell me I'm an influence, and they imitate me -- I'm not an influence in that case." He said, to really be influenced by somebody is to look behind, asking yourself: what is it that he is doing? So, I was thinking... there were and there are so many fans (ordinary people as well as artists) who say they're influenced by Bowie/Ziggy, but they're just copying him and his style. This is ironic, considering that Bowie's message has always been: do your own thing, go against the flow, try something different, break the laws. So, I mean, of course Bowie wanted to kill Ziggy when he saw all those Ziggy copies.

PS. What role does the song My Death have in all this?



"Do I look like I care about my image?" Frank Black