Mindful of the controversy that surrounded the
leaking of TOY online, I thought long and hard about whether or not to
post this preview of BOWIE: OBJECT.
If it exerts pressure on David and/or his publisher to get
the book out, then I think it can only be a good thing and I feel
justified in doing so.
Does David really believe that the leaking of TOY
was a bad thing? In the absence of any new music, this brief extract is
a fascinating and highly revealing insight into David’s life & work
which will make his fans happy.
1) This sample material was submitted to the publisher in
advance of the contract being signed, and nobody other than David and
his editor can be certain whether these texts or images will be included
in the final version of the completed book (but this is a similar issue
to the leaked version of TOY which did not contain completed mixes or a finalized running order)
2) I am obviously not prepared to name the source who
provided me with this material, but I am happy to take down this post
upon request should anyone feel their copyright has been infringed. Just
message me via the blog, no need for any nasty solicitors’ letters!
3) For the attention of Michael Stimson, also known as Mist,
who still can’t or won’t accept this is a hoax, I MADE IT UP!All of it.
The pictures are from Google Images and the text was 100% invented by
me, apart from the bits lifted from Wiki.
There’s no
“element of truth” in this, apart from the fact that Bowie was reported
to have begun work on a book with the same title many moons ago. But he
has nothing to do with this, OK?
All of it was written by me, none of it
was based on any fragments of manuscript or any ideas by anyone else. I
know you don’t like being wrong Michael, but you gotta accept it, dude.
Didn’t your ever so reliable contact in New York confirm it was a hoax?
Or was he too busy watching the band rehearse for their select European
dates? Amazon states that a different book, entitled “Objects” by
David Bowie, will be available in October 2014, but I must stress that I
know nothing about that book and it certainly has nothing to do with
what I’ve written below. Perhaps Bowie is now trying to hoax me? Maybe
Mist can clear it up for us as his track record in this matter is pretty
good.
22. Minimoog.
Eno gifted this keyboard to me at the end of our sessions for the album that would become Low at the Chateau d’Herouville in the fall of 1976.
The tilting control panel is truly iconic, the
wood finish superb, the feel of the dials top-notch, and the 44-key (F
to C) keyboard is a delight — it certainly beats any vintage Model D
I’ve played for both speed and responsiveness. Though it weighs in at a
hefty18kg, its ergonomics are quite superlative. At its inception, the
Minimoog was surprisingly close to being the perfect solo synthesizer;
indeed there’s arguably no serious rival for the role even today. Yet
soloists demand to express themselves and there the Mini had obvious
shortcomings: its keyboard lacks velocity and after-touch, while the
pitch-bender and modulation wheels never felt like the final word in
performance control. Nevertheless, without becoming lost in the enigma
that is the Minimoog, let’s agree that it must have possessed special
qualities to set it apart from the crowd for so long — even from others
in the Moog stable.
Moog had constructed his own theremin as early as 1948.
Later he illustrated the mechanics of a theremin in the hobbyist
magazine ‘Electronics World’ and offered the parts in kit form by mail
order which became very successful, albeit of limited value to even the
most esoteric composers. The Moog synthesizer, on the other hand, was
one of the very first electronic musical instruments to be widely used
across many popular genres. I only met Bob Moog on one occasion and we
bonded not over music, but over the common mispronunciation of our
respective surnames. Bob always pronounced his surname – and that of his
eponymous electronic progeny – to rhyme with ‘vogue’.
The motifs for all of the instrumental sequences on Low were
mapped out on this Minimoog. My fading memories of those sessions are
dominated by images of Eno hunched over the keyboard turning dials by
imperceptible fractions, as amazed and delighted by the sonic textures
he was producing as were Tony V and myself:
“Do you know it has a logarithmic one volt-per-octave pitch control and a separate pulse-triggering signal?” said Eno, breathlessly.
I said, “Brian, if you hum it, I’ll sing it…”
39. Female Mimics Magazine.
Purchased on my first ever trip to New York from an underground
bookstore close to Warhol’s second Factory in the Decker Building at 33
Union Square. Five bucks was a hell of a lot of money back in 1971, but I
guess that cover image must have lodged itself in my subconscious for
now that I see it again, I’m immediately struck by its influence on the Boys Keep Swinging video.
You’ll see it’s volume number two; now, if any completists
out there have a spare copy of number one, do please let me have your
PayPal address.
50. Wiss Haberdashery Scissors.
“When you cut into the present, the future leaks out.” – WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS
Long before computer programs existed to juxtapose
arbitrary segments of text, I employed the same methods as those trusted
by literary innovators such as Burroughs (who had been introduced to
cut-ups by the painter Brion Gysin), T.S. Eliot and Tristan Tzara:
namely scissors and paste.
Being large, weighty haberdashery scissors, it’s entirely
possible these may have originally belonged to Natasha Kornilof, though I
really cannot say for sure. Natasha created stage-wear for Freddie
Mercury and for myself over a number of years – the Ashes To Ashes pierrot
being perhaps the most iconic, but she also designed and made the
clothes I wore for the 1978 tour and for the Glass Spider tour.
Certainly these actual scissors were in my box of tricks when I first
began to experiment with cut-ups writing material for the Hunky Dory
album around 1970, and I’d done a television recording of one of
Lindsay Kemp’s shows shortly before that for which Natasha had overseen
the costumes, so the chronology fits. I’m often accused of stealing
ideas, but here and now I freely admit to past thievery in a more
literal sense, though I’m happy to say I did eventually curb my natural
kleptomaniac tendencies.
I’d like to be able to say that the texts I cut up were
obscure occult works and philosophical treatises, but that would be
fibbing. I remember cutting up speech bubbles from Marvel comics,
paragraphs from Georgette Heyer and other ephemeral library fodder,
fashion editorials from newspapers, and much more besides. It was all
pretty unremarkable stuff, but for me, the inspiration offered by a
juxtaposed image or a sudden, unexpected turn of phrase is incomparable.
The very first song I recorded where the lyrics had been formed using this process would have been either The Bewlay Brothers or Life On Mars?
but I do remember it was the latter which gave me a true sense of how
important a creative breakthrough the cut-up technique would be for my
lyric writing. Thereafter, these scissors quickly assumed talismanic
properties and I used them to greater or lesser extents on pretty much
every album right through to Scary Monsters; I got them out again during the writing of Heathen
in preference to using the Verbasizer program on my Mac. Cutting paper
and physically rearranging words and phrases is a more satisfyingly
tactile process than tapping at a keyboard.
These are not, however, the scissors seen in the BBC’s Omnibus documentary and used to demonstrate the assemblage of the Moonage Daydream lyrics; that sequence must have been recreated later in a London studio because they weren’t even my bloody hands!
64. Prototype Ziggy Stardust Boots.
Before I came under Japanese influence, the costume for Ziggy was largely based on the uniform of the Droogs in A Clockwork Orange
which was another contemporaneous obsession of mine. I wanted to devise
a multicolored version of the Droogs’ monochrome ensemble of white
jumpsuits and black boots. Prototype footwear was made by a chap called
Stan at Greenaway & Sons in Penge, South-East London. Unfortunately
though, these prototypes proved unsuitable: the patent leather was far
too rigid to wear on stage as it restricted the mobility in my ankles,
added to which the iridescent finish (described by Mick Ronson as
looking like “a melted down bowling ball”) was quite dramatically out of
keeping with the rather more muted colours of the costume fabrics.
I think it must have been dear old Lindsay Kemp who recommended
Anello & Davide, so legendary was this historic London firm in the
firmament of dance. Not only had Anello & Davide made bespoke
theatrical footwear for generations, but I believe it was they who had
been responsible for adapting the traditional Chelsea boot for The
Beatles by the addition of the higher Cuban heel of a flamenco boot.
Anello & Davide used to be located diagonally opposite English
National Opera at the lower end of St Martin’s Lane, but last time I was
in London I noticed that the site is now occupied by a ubiquitous
coffee shop chain.
Anello & Davide created the boots I wore on stage which were made
from a softened leather in darker, matte colours with a much thinner
rubber sole, plus those all-important sweat-proof, non-rust eyelets. But
the unworn “bowling ball” prototypes have remained in my closet,
hoarder that I am, for nigh on forty years. “My, my, the time do fly”.
66. Gillette Supermax Pro 1300 Hairdryer.
This hairdryer was one of Suzy Ronson’s which accompanied me to the
Café de Paris after Ziggy was laid to rest at Hammersmith Odeon. Suzy
suggested I take it to tart myself up in my suite before coming down for
the party, but unfortunately the diffuser had become detached somewhere
between Hammersmith and Piccadilly – and a diffuser, as any good coiffure
will tell you, is the secret to the fluffy-on-top style that Ziggy
wore. I washed, dried and re-dried my hair countless times, eventually
resorting to lacquer and even soap to combat a bad hair day of near
catastrophic proportions. Even now, I can’t look at the photographs
taken that night without shuddering.
“Not only is it the last hairdryer of the tour…”
83. Black Satin Eye Patch.
I’ve seen it said that I adopted the eye patch for a while
in 1973 because of light-sensitivity symptomatic of the anisocoria in my
left eye. To this I say pish, twaddle and tosh: the truth is altogether
more prosaic. A nasty case of conjunctivitis on the day I was due to
record a promo for a Dutch television show necessitated a hasty
cover-up. We toyed with a blindfold (referencing the G.F. Watts painting
‘Hope’ – guitar replacing lyre) and a monocle with a violet lens
(referencing Elizabeth Taylor), but the eye patch beat them hands down
for piratical swagger and I grew rather fond of my latest sartorial
affectation, wearing it again many times over subsequent months for photo shoots and television recordings – perhaps on the Russell Harty
Show? Someone will correct me, I’m sure; most probably Kevin Cann.
90. Garden Gnomes.
A Haddon Hall housewarming gift from Ken Pitt. Not the original
Laughing Gnome (although Ken’s delightful accompanying note did refer to
the smaller of the pair as being “his brother whose name was Fred”), but nor is this one a leering, Hogarth Toby Jug-with-legs as so many modern garden gnomes tend to be.
Unlike their indolent fishermen cousins, the original
gnomes modeled in Germany and Austria were always depicted as
industrious artisans (harking back to their origins in Teutonic
mythology), hence the apron and the hand held busily aloft. This little
fellow has a hole in his left fist where presumably he once held a
hammer or chisel, but which comfortably holds half a dozen incense
sticks too – and that’s precisely what we used him for at Haddon Hall.
Perhaps not what Ken had in mind when he sent them, but hell, this was
1969, maaannn. The gnomes perched on a teak coffee table for the
duration of our tenure, ankle deep in ash by the time we departed.
I like to think that his facial hair may have partly influenced The Spiders’ bass guitarist, Trevor Bolder.
Sadly, this is one of those stories that has leaked out way ahead of our intended announcement.
It
first surfaced last week on the Publishers Weekly site and it looked
like it had slipped by unnoticed for a few days. But, as ever, we didn't
reckon on some of you eagle-eyed spotters out there.
We still
don't want to give too much away just yet, suffice to say that David
Bowie has been working on a book entitled Bowie: Object.
There's no firm publishing date in place, but we can give you a little more detail.
Bowie:
Object is a collection of pieces from the Bowie archive, wherein, for
the first time, fans and all those interested in popular culture will
have the opportunity to understand more about the Bowie creative process
and his impact on modern popular music.
Bowie: Object features
100 fascinating items that give an insight into the life of one of the
most unique music and fashion icons in history. The book's pictorial
content is annotated with insightful, witty and personal text written by
Bowie himself.
Designed by Barnbrook, Bowie: Object is simply
and boldly designed and each of the objects is photographed in a clean,
contemporary style.
The publication will be available in a number
of colours, each one in a corresponding colour to make it a striking
object in itself.
On November 3rd 1975, David took possession of a
Kirlian Photograph Machine, (see image at top of this item) a gift from
Dr. Thelma Moss at the Dept. of Parapsychology, UCLA.
Some of
the results from the contraption were reproduced for the first time in
the 1976 Isolar programme, actually those particular images can be seen
in the booklet for the Station To Station Deluxe Box released tomorrow!
The
programme was available to buy on Bowie's 1976 Station To Station tour.
Above is a 35mm slide with some similar pictures to those that appeared
in the programme
What's this all got to do with Bowie: Object
you may well ask. Well, the Kirlian Photographic Device could very well
be just one of the 100 objects that appear in the book, but then
again...
Stay tuned for much more regarding Bowie: Object in the foreseeable future.
Then
there’s Bowie: Object by David Bowie (no U.S. pub, delivery Dec. 2010),
which the agency says is the first in a series of books by the pop icon
in which he explores his creative process by featuring 100 things from
his “archive.” Each item will be “accompanied by a witty, personal
text.”
This might actually be interesting to read, and at the very least it is good to see he is 'exploring his creative process'
David Bowie is The Man Who Fell to Earth • Documentary 2017
Nic Roeg: "What a great documentary - so interesting"
Candy Clark: "Spectacular
footage and commentary about the making of The Man Who Fell To Earth.
Made me cry seeing David and listening to his pride about his work..
Learned a lot that I didn't know. He was brilliant..Just brilliant."
This is a film about a film - Nic Roeg's 1976 esoteric science fiction movie - The Man Who Fell to Earth. Roeg's film has beguiled and baffled audiences since it's release. It explores, often in abstraction and allegory, the themes of alienation, power, love, trust and betrayal.
David Bowie is The Man Who Fell To Earth is an attempt to partly explain the movie. And it is a look at the way the film came together, and at Roeg’s working methods, and at the creative process itself. And because it is a film about the creative process, it was felt that it should also in itself, try to also be creative.
It is quite widely known that Bowie and his music were greatly influenced by Roeg and the time he spent working on the film. And so David Bowie is The Man Who Fell To Earth also tries to paint a small portrait of Bowie and his music during the era – from latter part of ’74 up to the January 1977 album, Low.
Bowie also created music that was intended for the soundtrack to The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Famously, it was never used and remains almost unheard to this day.
However, parts of the unused music were later incorporated into his albums Station To Station and Low.
And so, as part of the story telling in David Bowie is The Man Who Fell To Earth, some of Bowie’s music from those albums is used with re-edits of scenes from the movie, worked in with the interviews and commentary.
Whether or not David Bowie is The Man Who Fell To Earth is actually successful in these endeavors, you may judge for yourself.
At the very least it is an hour in the brilliant and highly enjoyable company and art of Nic Roeg, David Bowie and Candy Clark.
_______________________________
Was Newton an alien?
In the first TV interview where he talks about the movie, Bowie becomes visibly irritated when host Russel Harty describes Bowie's Thomas Jerome Newton character as an alien, and he almost chastises Harty for his presumptuousness; "…it's assumed he's an alien from outer space, but it may not necessarily be true".
Yet on the surface at least, Newton is an alien, who has come to earth to transport water back to his own dying planet. And in interviews Roeg always refers to Newton as an alien. Whereas Bowie doesn't seem so certain about Newton’s origins, or his mission. In the 1992 The Man Who Fell To Earth commentary, Bowie says, "Newton knows he's going to be betrayed, it's very obvious, but he seemingly doesn't do very much about it. So he must be here for some other purpose". As Bowie points out, there are Christ-like parallels. We can hypothesize that Newton’s falling to earth without any evidence of a space ship, is a kind of Immaculate Conception. And he arrives apparently a very pure being, who helps humanity advance and only seeks for himself a way to help his people. What are we to think is the "other purpose" for him being here? Perhaps he came, like Christ to test human-kind? And then of course there is the betrayal. But in the end Newton wasn't born again. He becomes a ruined and lonely reflection of the contemporary culture of decadence and self-destruction.
______________________________
The majority of the footage used here is of course from The Man Who Fell To Earth. But in addition another approximately fifty video and audio sources were used.
Fourteen partial David Bowie tracks were used, as re-imagined parts of the movie soundtrack, and also fairly gratuitously as excuses to just add some rocking tracks that had new or revised videos put together for them.
All tracks and sources are listed in the credits at the end of the film. And listing them here would also be a kind of a spoiler - so let’s not do that!
Like a lot of my video projects, this thing happened by accident. Whilst I was working on the video for Subterraneans, I decided that it would be good to have an accompanying video that compiled in a very simple way, all the relevant interviews with Bowie where he talks about the film. I imagined that at most, it would be a thing of about 15 or 20 minutes. However, as is usually the case with me, I went very deeply into it, and found a lot more material than I bargained for. It quickly became clear that here was a great story that needed to be told in film, and the thing just kept growing in size and in complexity.
In the end I have been working on it consistently and compulsively for the last 3 months and put in perhaps 700 hours of work.
The co-star of Bowie’s 1983 video, "China Girl," New Zealander Geeling Ching, spoke out
today about how her turn as the legendary rock star’s love object —
which transcended video magic as a real-life romance — absolutely
changed her life.
Ching was a 23-year-old waitressing at a Sydney cafe when the living whirlwind that is Bowie swept her off her feet, AP reports. "There was something quite other-worldly about him. He was beautiful. Just beautiful,” Ching told AP.
But
has “China Girl” aged well? It’s been maintained for decades that the
racial stereotypes blatant throughout the video were always intended as
satire. Bowie himself was an admirably progressive proponent of racial
diversity and inclusion. That much is evident from this clip, wherein he
called out MTV for essentially segregating black artists for fear that the channel would alienate their largely white viewership.
Popular
culture and media are more often held accountable for cultural
appropriation today than in the 1980s, to be sure. The video ostensibly
parodies southeast Asian stereotypes that, sadly, still persist today,
perpetuating the Western world’s fetishization of Asian women. Still,
when Bowie pulls at the corners of his eyelids, then laughs, one can’t
help but cringe.
In critical texts, “The ‘China Girl’ Problem”
has been scrutinized not as a negative reflection on Bowie (or Iggy Pop,
with whom “China Girls” was written, first appearing on 1977’s The Idiot)
but as something inevitably problematic regardless of how
well-intentioned the song’s message was. “Though Bowie may mean to
parody what people say about 'China girls', the video seems, by so
clearly endearing the stereotypes, to be in danger of supporting them by
not critiquing them enough, or by making the critique too subtle,”
according to a new book, David Bowie: Critical Perspectives,
released last year. “By shifting the song's intention from personal
romance to something like politics or ideological critique, Bowie opened
the text to multiple interpretations, but also destabilised meaning in
the song, creating possibilities that he was perhaps not able fully to
anticipate or control."
What we all loved about David Bowie was
just that: he was unafraid to make a statement, however divisive it
might be to a whitewashed media fueled by the unenlightened attitudes of
the American (and European) public. And, in retrospect, he was very
likely aware that some people wouldn’t get that “China Girl” was a
parody. But this justification for the work only applies within this
specific context. If we didn’t know Bowie better, “China Girl” would
look like an egregiously racist video today. It goes to show that Bowie
was a visionary in ways we may not have even considered until now: He
practically foresaw the advent of Poe’s Law.
Lyrics
Oh, oh, oh, little China girl Oh, oh, oh, little China girl
I could escape this feeling, with my China girl I feel a wreck without my, little China girl I hear her heart beating, loud as thunder Saw they stars crashing I'm a mess without my, little China girl Wake up mornings where's my, little China girl I hear her heart's beating, loud as thunder Saw they stars crashing down I feel a-tragic like I'm Marlon Brando When I look at my China girl I could pretend that nothing really meant too much When I look at my China girl I stumble into town just like a sacred cow Visions of swastikas in my head Plans for everyone It's in the whites of my eyes My little China girl You shouldn't mess with me I'll ruin everything you are You know, I'll give you television I'll give you eyes of blue I'll give you men's who want to rule the world And when I get excited My little China girl says Oh baby, just you shut your mouth She says, sh-sh-shhh She says, sh-sh-shhh She says She says And when I get excited My little China girl says Oh baby, just you shut your mouth And when I get excited My little China girl says Oh baby, just you shut your mouth She says, sh-sh-shhh She says
Oh, oh, oh, little China girl Oh, oh, oh, little China girl Oh, oh, oh, little China girl Oh, oh, oh, little China girl
In
this song, the singer warns the China Girl that he will destroy her
culture by imparting Western values of materialism and superficial
beauty ("I'll give you television, I'll give you eyes of blue, I'll give
you a man who wants to rule the world"). Paul Trynka, the author of David Bowie's biography Starman,
claims the song was inspired by Iggy Pop's infatuation with Kuelan
Nguyen, a beautiful Vietnamese woman. She was staying at the studio and
Bowie encouraged the couple's relationship. It has also be argued that
the song is about heroin addiction, as "China White" is slang for the
drug.
Iggy Pop wrote this with Bowie. It first appeared on Iggy's 1977 album The Idiot. The song did not see commercial success until later performed by Bowie. Iggy
Pop was a very influential musician, but he didn't sell a lot of albums
and was often low on cash. The proceeds from this gave him some
financial stability for the first time.
>>
In the 2018 documentary American Valhalla, Pop revealed that "China Girl" was indeed about a real woman - it was somebody's wife that Pop "got to know." In
this scene, Josh Homme is reading a typed note from Pop that mentions a
French singer as being the husband of this woman. This indicates that
the song's subject is indeed Kuelan Nguyen, who was dating (although not
married to) Jacques Higelin, a French singer.
Stevie
Ray Vaughan is the lead guitarist on this song and most of the album.
Bowie discovered him after seeing him at a music festival. Bowie got him
to play on his album and asked him to tour with him, but Stevie
surprisingly declined. He believed in his group Double Trouble and
thought they could make a go of it on their own.
The
original Iggy Pop version of this song didn't have the famous oriental
guitar riff that featured on Bowie's recording. Bowie's version was
produced by Nile Rodgers, who came up with that guitar riff. According to Rodgers, they had finished recording the song "Let's Dance,"
and Bowie game him a recording of the original "China Girl," explaining
that it could be a hit if they could come up with a hook. Rodgers went
literal, playing off the word "China" to come up with the riff, which he
knew bordered on parody. Said Rodgers: "David was either going to hate
this so much he would fire me, or he was going to get the comedic value
of writing this silly little poppy thing." Rodgers was nervous
when he played Bowie the riff, but David loved it straightaway. With
this riff and a much smoother production, the song sounded little like
Iggy Pop's version, and the song became a hit.
The
video was banned in many countries, but it went over very well on MTV.
It won the first ever award for Best Male Video at the 1984 Video Music Awards.
New Zealand waitress Geeling Ng was chosen by Bowie to play his object
of affection. She is now a TV presenter. Ng recalled to Q
magazine June 2009: "David was my idol. When I met him, it was
terrifying. But he was very easy to get on with." She added: "David and I
started dating soon afterwards, but I didn't enjoy the lack of
privacy." In the video, Ng has a beach romp with Bowie. She told Q
magazine: "Can I point out, contrary to popular belief, David and I did
not have sex on the beach! It was shot at 5am; the water was freezing
and wasn't a great lubricant and we were being watched by a film crew
and joggers passing by. Not very romantic."
In the film, The Wedding Singer, Drew Barrymore's character, Julia, sings this song in a nightclub.
Francis from NycChina
Girl was written by Iggy Pop and David Bowie helped with the musical
arrangement. Iggy released the song on his 1977 “The Idiot” album. The
song wasn’t inspired by Iggy’s relationship with a Vietnamese woman. Like many of the songs on that album, China Girl was ultimately a metaphor for Iggy’s career with the defunct Stooges. Bowie released China Girl as a single in 1983, with a more commercial arrangement. Iggy
released the best version of China Gir in 2017 in his Live at the Royal
Albert Hall album with guitarist Josh Homme and some of the Artic
Monkeys backing them.
Bruce from San Jose, Calif.Always
enjoyed the primal, tugging beat of this song (dare I say, a great beat
for lovemaking? [blush]) and as a young guy, it also got me interested
in "Yellow Fever" at the time...
Clare from AustraliaTwo
things - Bowie did NOT have different coloured eyes. His eyes were
blue, it was only his damaged pupil in his left eye that made it appear a
different colour. The condition is called anisocoria.
Geeling Ng
has stated time and again that she did not have sex with Bowie in this
clip. Marlow of Perth, you are thinking of Lori Mattix as the consenting
16 year old!
Arthur from San DiegoDoesn't
anyone think this song might just be a double entendre? Video portrays
it as a white guy falling in love with an Asian woman and warning her of
the stigmas and problems with the white mans society. Truth of the song
was that it was written about China white heroin? I think it has two
meanings and can be interpreted either way that is the beauty of it.
Jodie from XxIt's about heroin, definitely.
Pekay from Warringah, AustraliaThe film was filmed at Long Reef beach on Sydney's northern beaches, I surf there and have done for 35+ years.
Michael from San Diego, CaThat's maus; like cat and mouse game in a cat house!
Michael from San Diego, CaAlso
as I learned in 'vulgar' standard German: 'ich lieben sie mause, wollen
sie zug-zug?' to come-on to a 'street walker' (I love you honey, would
you like to have sex?).
Michael from San Diego, CaI
thought that this video was about the Japanese invasion of British
Manchuria; like in the movie "Empire of the Sun" (an axis force member
of Nazi Germany).
Steve from London, United KingdomLet's
take this song and video at face value...It's a love song, a western
man full of western values falls in love for a chinese girl, get's
addicted to her, misses her when she's not around, loves her wildness,
is scared of succumbing to her totally........references to Nazism,
power, and domination are his attempts to warn her to stay away even
though he wants her he doesn't want her corrupted....
Dave from Norfolk , VaStevie
Ray Vaughan almost did do the tour, however Bowie told him that he
would have to where the costumes and dance the choreography as the rest
of the band. The other comments made are true about why SRV did not as
well however the reason that SRV gave to Bowie was the dancing.
Holly from Hamburg, GermanyI
find it interesting, that in 1983 Bowie was a huge fan of an Icelandic
Band called Kukl, whose female singer had a somewhat asian look. This
girl later became famous as Bjork ....
Aerok from Paris, FranceThat
Song Was recorded In LE Chateau D herouville That Was managed at the
Time by Yves Jaget there was also a T Rex Album recorded there The
song was written at the wery Lat minute Cause Iggy was inspired By a
"china girl" (vietnamese in fact) That lived in a big house depending
of the castle So he meet That Girl in the Park and wrote the song very
quickly That Laday was at the time the wife of a frenchy Singer So I
will not Write her Name in here but it starts with a K
Don from Munster, InI
always thought it was about a relationship between the male abuser and
his female enabler. The first part (verses through the first part of the
bridge) depict a man looking for his woman and growing more and more
agitated. The second part ("My little China Girl...to Rule the World")
has the guy at a moment of remorse, telling the girl to go away from
her, and the final part (And when I get excited..."Just you shut your
mouse") is the girl enabling the guy and, in a way, saying she's not
leaving.
Ella from Basel, Sierra LeoneBob
from Lakewood, you are a complete and total idiot for writing this huge
heap of crap about psychotic people being 'mentally afflicted' and them
not knowing they're experiencing an illness. I despise intolerably
ignorant and dumb people like you and hope you all die out within the
next minute. China Girl is one of the great songs.
Karina from Blieskastel, GermanyI
find it a bit exaggerated to call Joey Feer a racist. In the LP
version, you can recognize that Bowie kind of imitates the way a
prototypical non-native Asian speaker of English would pronounce the
sentence "just you shut your mouth". It's not only the pronunciation of
"mouth" but the whole diction that sounds somewhat "non-native". Hope
you allow me to say this given that I'm a non-native speaker, too, and
we all have our troubles with your nice little "th"es. Anyway, a nice
detail in the song, makes the speaker appear somewhat dubious and
ambiguous (like Bowie in the video).
Ian from Paddock Lake, WiFinding
out more about the idea I wrote about below, I did find out that Iggy
Pop and David Bowie moved to Berlin around the same time to wean
themselves of their drug addictions (don't know how it would help but
that's what WP says). This was among the songs they wrote together in
Berlin, which could explain the swastika thing, because through the
division of the city, you could see the effects of WWII and the
"swastika" era "in the whites of your eyes." So that explains mixing
swastikas, stumbling into town, and drug addiction all together.
Ian from Paddock Lake, WiI
don't argue that it's about drugs. It definitely is. After all, Iggy
did co-write it. It's a portrait of an addict, possibly himself. The
swastika and sacred cow thingy might refer to when he lived in West
Berlin in the late '70s, during which he recorded the landmark "Heroes."
And Joey Freer from NY, you are a racist.
Jeff from Long Beach,Actually,
Bob in Lakewood, OH, many people with a mental disorder DO KNOW that
they have one. All of my clients do. Also, its the BIPOLARS who most
often suffer the feelings of grandiosity - NOT the psychotics. Don't
state facts if you don't know what you're talking about. Jeff Chudner, MA, CGACII
Joey Freer from Kingston, NyDavid Bowie Says Oh Baby Just Your Shut Your Mouse than mouth because the china girl can't say mouth.
