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A lyrical interpretation
by Jonathan Greatorex
November 1969
The larva had been assimilating for twenty-three years: watching, listening, assessing, occasionally coming up for air and vinyl assignments, before returning to confined and murky depths. Fruitful years, gathering spiritual and physical information from contemporaries and peers: some absorbed for future references some excreted in narration's of detached events or vignettes of observed characters and their peculiar emotions. Youth, ostentatiously thought of as a handicap for those confined within its walls, has an insatiable thirst for experience. Those who try to allude and aspire beyond it's confines sadly emerge prematurely deficient. Those who let it run it's full course become the true authors of feeling. They gradually begin to eliminate the obvious in favour of questioning the darkness. And from the mould of `Take My Tip', Bowie's first pen-to-ear, there was a four year gestation before the pupa could leave the womb, grow in its `tin can', and look down on Mother Earth.
That is not to say the `David Bowie' album of 1969 is a fully mature piece. Nothing could be further from the truth, there are numerous pitfalls holding hands with occasional clips of genius. However, it is as an `emergence album' that it obtains credibility, and consequently becomes the first that is dealt with. What I feel greatly important, is that the single, `Space Oddity', had been released four months prior to the album. It had been the first real commercial success for Bowie following a spate of eleven dismal failures, and as such gave him the impetus to perhaps believe in himself and realise his future capability.
Gus Dudgeon had produced that initial July single which had obviously helped the expedience in cutting both the English (Philips), and American (Mercury) albums later that year, the production side of which David offered to a surprised Tony Visconti, (Visconti who had produced earlier Bowie material had not liked the `Oddity' single).
Nor were the tracks fresh, as Visconti recalled, they had been written two years previously during a lean period in David's career. There is also little of the congruity found on the later albums. A pot-pouri of ideas and rhythms that act not so much as a foil, but more of a scratching-stick against each other. Influences are visible, both conceptual and musical. One moment he is Dylan, the next he lapses into a lamenting Tony Newley. The album not only wanders in and out of the middle-to-late 60s, but also possesses that almost arrogant uniqueness of Bowie in being able to provide the listener with a foretaste of what is to come; A technique of projection so vividly displayed through the `Ziggy' project.
Bowie had waltzed into and out of a romance with Hermione Farthingale after they had met on the set of a television play called 'The Pistol Shot', hence the `Letter to...'song.
The excellent Stanley Kubrik interpretation of `2001 A Space Oddesey' had prompted the small vinyl rendition.
`Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed' feels,(at least musically) that the protagonist with `eyes in his backside' scorns his earlier King Bees and Buzz pressings, and self-contradicting nuances of time reflect once again the Hermione affair in `Occasional Dream'.
Set against the latter is the more idealist love of `Janine'.
`God Knows I'm Good' is a vignette which could quite easily have appeared on the earlier Deram namesake-'David Bowie'
`Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud' was a fashionable reflection of the time, very folksy in it's raising the banner for those too wrecked to raise themselves. `Memory of a Free Festival' is at it was-a tribute in the form of a chubby cigarette to the Free Concert organised from David's Beckenham Arts Lab.
David had been signed to Mercury by Lou Reizner. Mary Angela Barnett, a friend of Lou's, was at the recording session of 'Cygnet Committee'
"Seeing him record `Cygnet Committee' was amazing and frightening. It symbolised everything he was doing at the Beckenham Arts Lab. Tony, (Visconti) told David to come up at the end, but David said no and instead headed straight for the bathroom where he cried for twenty minutes"
Listening to `Cygnet Committee' can almost be described as the painful, unintelligible cries of a man giving birth. "I want to LIVE !" And the child that Bowie bore that day was to be symbiotically alive with him through the ensuing seven years.
The moderately slow C and Em chords which open Space Oddity prepare perfectly a mood for the lyrical content of the song. Other than leaning heavily on a video Special Effects Generator against a backdrop of twinkling stars, it is an almost ethereal eerie melody, each chord gently bouncing off the walls of space. Terry Cox's rasping snare helps to push this melancholic feeling into the opening line, "Ground Control to Major Tom". The sombre voice repeats, "Take your protein pills and put your helmet on". Major Tom, supposedly acting out the requirements of a Western Humanity, from the offset is alienated both spiritually and physically from his fellow men. The emotionless voice of Ground Control eventually drones "May God's love be with you".
Surviving the lift-off, Major Tom leaves the `gravity' of earth, a feat awarding him with "making the grade". His personality and real achievement go unobserved. All the media wants to know is: "Whose shirts you wear ?",
More macabre are the teasing jibes of whether he has now the guts to get out of his craft and walk in space. He complies with their wishes, announcing the curious epigram that "The stars look very different today"
His alienation becomes more acute as he muses upon his relative `Tin Can' position, and as he drifts on past the moon, leaving the blue oasis of earth behind, he resigns himself to the impossibility of doing anything about his own planet. However, this rather distressing thought gradually succumbs to a sensation of solace; "Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles I'm feeling very still and I think my spaceship knows which way to go." He may physically be travelling faster than any man before, and ironically be inside man's most advanced technical machine, but his mind is blissfully at rest. He requests human emotion to the clones of Ground Control and terminates communication. This feeling of profound alienation suffered by Major Tom becomes a rhetoric theme of many of Bowie's future works. The futility and frailty of man's delusions is later elucidated through songs which place him with the elite members of contemporary songwriters.
I have decided to place these two songs adjacent because there appears to be the central theme within of Bowie's love for Hermione Farthingale.
As mentioned, Bowie first met Hermione on the set of the television play `The Pistol Shot' in which they had danced together. David had arrived at the studio following an association with Lindsay Kemp's mime show. Story has it that Lindsay and David had been drawn together after David had caught his own composition `When I live my Dream' being used as interval music at the "Dance Centre". Bowie had offered to produce scores for Kemp if he in return would teach David how to dance. The arrangement proved satisfactory for both sides, and they worked together off and on for the next two years. Following his meeting with Hermione, he interrupted work with Kemp, and the two formed a mixed-multi-media group called `Feathers along with fellow artist, Roy Hutchinson. They toured the underground circuit of London's experimental venues with moderate success. Ken Pitt, Bowies's manager at the time was sufficiently impressed by their performances that he decided to invest [sterling]7000 of his own money in producing a film of the group, called: `Love You `Till Tuesday'. However, during production it was discovered that the film needed one final song for completion, Bowie complied by writing `Space Oddity'. It was Christmas 1968, and within two months "Feathers" had split and Bowie and Farthingale also parted company.
`Letter to Hermione' is perhaps one of David's most direct love songs. `An Occasional Dream' on the other hand tends to be more tacky in it's romanticism. Both open with poetic verbal gestures, indicating not only scene, but also the form of relationship. In `Letter to..' "The hand that wrote this letter sweeps the pillow clean". And `Dream'.. "I recall how we met on the corner of a bed". The latter song even conjures to mind a Beatle classic by it's innuendo of "Swedish rooms of hessian and wood". It is the idealists romantic notion where characters "talk with their eyes".
The unpredictability and rashness of impetuous romance is dwelt heavily upon, "In our madness we burnt one hundred days...And we'd sleep oh so close but not really close our eyes". However, Bowie keeps the strawberries and cream well under control by producing lines such as "`Tween the sheets of summer, made in blue gently breathing nights". But `time' the dominant usurper . of memory is constantly at hand, and of this, the writer is well aware. Time gently washes and erodes the past until the once heavily-passionate affair becomes the subconscious musing of an occasional dream.
`Letter to Hermione', although directed towards an equal partner, and consequently a being of mutual understanding is decidedly more open in attitude. The nativity is far more apparent than `An Occasional Dream' yet the listener can appreciate a deeper Sincerity. `An Occasional Drew m', is a sad reminiscence of events accepted as acts of fate. `Letter to Hermione' on the other hand possesses greater affection in that the writer feels and perhaps believes that his love, although unrequited, still lies dormant in his partners heart.
Accepting the normal progression of human nature in such happenings, it would generally be taken that `Letter to Hermione' was the predecessor of `An Occasional Dream'. The former still clings, however desperately, to the possibility that circumstances could change in favour of the writer, and that love, not only on the rocks, but stranded at high tide, has the remotest chance of salvation. "I'd tear my soul to ease the pain, I think maybe you feel the same" His love for Hermione refuses to submit to defeat, yet equally admits that physical absence could possibly have been for the better "They say your life is going very well. They say you sparkle like a different girl" However, this acceptance does have it's limitations. The love had been so Strong that surely Hermione must feel the tinglings of remorse too. "But something tells me that you hide, when all the world is warm and tired, you cry a little in the dark. Well so do I" The new lover in Hermione's life is brought forward, praised and congratulated. But darker thoughts emerge "Did you ever call my name by mistake ?"
The song, regardless of it's honesty, has sinister undertones of self-indulgent fantasy and ever to the last remains unresolved. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, so I'll just write some love for you"
This piece was an early attempt by Bowie to convey, in direct terms, the effect that rejection in love had upon him. His later work becomes obscure in it's sentiment, and perhaps we, as his audience, should be grateful that we were permitted to share with him his personal feelings towards a fellow human being in such an unadulterated manner.
To fully appreciate the message of `Cygnet Committee', we first have to understand the political climate within which it was written, and the prominent role Bowie had taken in the course of what was referred to as the `hippie dream'.
The principal exponents of popular music during the era had become increasingly more direct, reactionary and sensitive. Their music had progressed beyond the nativity of `boy meets girl and dances with her to tuneful melody' etc., to more dogmatic and moralistic themes. Perhaps the leading flame of this genre was Bob Dylan.
Bowie, physically young yet growing in mind, had related totally with the idealistic statements of his contemporaries. This idealism had concretely manifested itself as The Beckenham Arts Lab. The B.A.L., by his own definition was inaugurated in an attempt to further the cause of nurturing the creative processes of the `underground movement'. The `underground', a vogue word of it's period was the idealism of the hippies. `Come the revolution' a term bringing a wry smile to today's face, was indeed a very sincere vision of the late-sixties hippies. Bowie had been loyal to it's philosophies, almost to the point of fanaticism. Sadly, the `peace and love' aspect of the movement became over-saturated with moronic commercialism.
Terms of simplistic pacifism and naive escapism were the clinical dissections of a movement, which, no matter how much abused, would not respond with self-hypocrisy. Bowie became deeply hurt by such crass over-simplification. Very few members of the underground remained true to the cause. Those who did became embittered by the voracity which swamped and enticed their ranks away. Their only defence, and ultimate escape from such capitalistic greed, was to become either radical, or, as in the case of David Bowie, passionately reflective.
Enter 'Cygnet Committee':
`Cygnet Committee' has three central characters. There is a protagonist who recites for us, his listeners. The protagonist carries with him his entourage, an audience, who are ourselves. Finally there belongs an idealistic metaphysical being whose thoughts are an amalgamation of both the conscious and sub-conscious of both protagonist and listener. It is important to understand and relate to this 'presence', who, as neither protagonist nor listener, pervades and squeezes the main artery of Bowie`s lyrical pump for several albums to come.
The opening of `Cygnet Committee' presents us with the singer's frank statements of love, rippling against a backdrop of the `Committee's' chatter. The committee was elected by an act of commercialism to nurture the snowgoose from fledgling.
The protagonist, and hierarchical member of the hippie dream, before raising himself from the fold, lifts his hand, bestowing good fortune upon his brothers.
" I bless you madly, sadly as I tie my shoes." He is self-critical, proclaiming his own frailty; "I love you badly, just in time at times I guess" He discovers his position as surrogate leader and reflects upon long-standing principles which comfort little in the form of innovation. " So much has gone and little is new. And as the sparrow sings dawn-chorus's for someone else to hear, the thinker sits alone, growing so tired."
Enter the `presence', painfully reiterating the hippie dream, which, alas, has now been abandoned. "I gave them all they drained me very soul dry." He continues to spit out his bitterness, "I crushed my heart to ease their pains, no thought for me remains there. Nothing can they spare. What of me ?" Bordering upon detested self-pity, the presence admits to lowering all his guards in his mammoth attempt to construct a new life. He emerges, in his own lifeless eyes at least, a martyr to a lost cause. "Who praised their efforts to be free. Words of strength and care and sympathy." The motif `freedom' is central to the theme of `Cygnet Committee'.
The pre-hippie freedom had long been commonly accepted as that of Socialist ideology. Such ideology was not so much total freedom, but a limited `freedom' of a people who were `liberated as a mass', not as individuals.
Individual freedom had it's limitations: Socialism, by definition, advocates state ownership and control. Hippie ideology was, however, less oppressive, The greatest import was placed upon individual liberation, and `coerce obedience' was certainly out of the question.
In this way, the presence had initially felt itself a good force, opening "Doors that would have blocked their way. I braved their cause for little pay. I ravaged at my finance just for those whose claims were steeped in peace, tranquillity. Those who said a new world, new ways ever free." And this was the promise bestowed to the presence for his aid. Unfortunately, the murmurings were for a different form of revolution,(as commercialism closed in) His friends speak of "Glory, untold dreams, where all is God. and God is just a word." Bowie relates his distress at seeing the idealistic forces being wrongly channelled.
Now that a semi-capitalist `Thinker' had offered and given his all, he is drained. The radicals twisted his ideology to become revolutionaries of violence and hate. The Thinker is abandoned in favour of pursuing a more Socialistic version of freedom. They speak: " We had a friend, a talking man, who spoke of many Powers he had. Not of the best of men but ours. We used him. we let him use his powers. We let him fill our needs. now we are strong."
With hindsight, Bowie had watched the collapse of his own principles on the faces of his peers. They were now defeated or violently radical. Once more he brings in the protagonist to comment upon the aftermath of the Thinker's usurpation. " And the road is coming to it's end. Now the dammed have no time to make amends" The followers have become utterly fanatical in their pursuance of the ultimate aim. The goal has to be achieved no matter how perverse the means.
" Infiltrated business cess-pools hating through our sleeves, Yeh, and we slit the catholic throat, stoned the poor on slogans such as `Wish you could hear', `Love is all you need', `Kick out the jams', `Kick out Your mother', `Cut up your friend', `Screw up your brother or he'll get you in the end'."
And so the revolutionaries enlist a committee to enforce their dogma upon their contemporaries,(cygnets), in order to convert them into consummated human beings. But, in order to reach such fulfilment, they are forced to be free, and forced to believe: a complete reversal of their original passionate ideology.
This `free state' even imposes a creed to which the anthem is sung; " I believe in the Power of good, I believe in the state of love. I will fight for the right to be right. I will kill for the good of the fight for the right to be right."
The protagonist returns, only this time it is Bowie's soul. He is abhorred by the horror of such violence. To advocate the expendability of human life for whatever the reason, is extremely dangerous, as it is the obvious progression to the ultimate inhumanity, War. "And I open my eyes to look around and I see a child lay slain on the around."
Thus, the revolutionaries `Love Machine' lumbers through rows of desolation, indiscriminate of whoever is crushed in the process, except, of course, "The shrieks of the old rich."
The final stanza, is Bowie's reaffirmation of his original belief in total freedom. He emphasises that it is not simply the stagnation of a dogma-free existence, but a greater existentialism in the spontaneous freedom of the immediate. " I want to believe in the madness that calls NOW ! " Basing the assumption that reality as existence can only be lived and not bequested, and cannot be the object of thought. " And I want to believe that there's a light shining through somehow...and we want to live. Oh. we want to live. We want to live."
If anything, the song is a majestic anthem of velour, in which Bowie confronts both his own and his peers beliefs and ideals, questioning them almost to a point of self-destruction.
