This is the fifth and final of Lena Hall’s videos for her collection, Obsessed: David Bowie, part of a series of cover albums she offers online. I wanted to post all the videos in part because I like them and in part because they are in fact videos. Previous covers posted on this site include her renditions of “As the…

I could do with the money (you know that I could) I'm so wiped out with things as they are (you know that I could) I'd send my photograph to my honey And I'd come on like a regular superstar - “Star” About the time Bowie was writing the above lyrics, he was also writing the lyrics to “Suffragette City.”…

Michelle’s and my dear friend, Letizia Tagliafierro tragically lost her long battle with cancer earlier this year. Some of her many friends and former colleagues decided to honor her memory by establishing a scholarship in her name for SUNY Albany, Letizia’s Alma mater. Please consider making a donation to this tribute, which will help establish a permanently endowed public service…

Is there concrete all around or is it in my head? “All the Young Dudes,” written by Bowie but made famous by Mott the Hoople, contains many great lines. The anthemic song paints a not-terribly enticing portrait of early 70s youth culture, characterized by thoughts of suicide, shoplifting and kicking drag queens. Nonetheless, the song’s narrator would take all that…

OK, this one is going to be a little out there for a couple of reasons, but keep in mind part of the idea of this series is related to the concept of “found art.” The “symmetries”— the connections between the songs are not necessarily intentional. To start, I’ve misunderstood “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” for a long time. I…

Just a Gigolo has a terrible reputation, in part because Bowie, who starred in the movie, trashed it. Among other insults, he said it was his “32 Elvis Presley movies contained in one.” For this reason, I never really sought it out until recently. Now that I’ve finally seen the film, I can say that it’s not nearly as bad…

This clip is from the Belgian version of the singing competition show, The Voice (the show’s actual name is The Voice Belgique). As a result, while it was not created as a video per se, since it was made for television the video production quality is high as is the staging. More importantly, so too is the performance by Malou,…

I came across an article in an online publication called the Odessa Journal (click on the name to link to the article) about how “Bowie Night” is returning to a club in Kiev called the Bel Etage Music Hall (identified in the article as the Bel Etage Club). The show features 20 Ukrainian artists performing Bowie songs, with all proceeds…

There were a spate of news stories earlier this week about the discovery, made by Maine lobsterman Jacob Knowles, of a lobster that was not only half blue and half reddish-brown, but half male and half female. Knowles named the lobster Bowie, and has been doing a lot of media showing off his find, which he hopes to breed (actually…

I wanted to write a non-sappy Thanksgiving post. It’s actually quite hard. I like the idea of Thanksgiving, or at least what it has become— an entire holiday about reflecting on what’s good in life. It’s an inherently sappy thing to think about, but it is also worthwhile. The other thing that’s tough is coming up with a comprehensive list.…

Bowie’s album, Black Tie White Noise was released 30 years ago. I remember at the time passingly making a mental connection between his song, “Jump They Say” and Van Halen’s 1984 hit, “Jump.” In most respects they are very different songs, but in the spirit of this Divine Symmetry series, there might be some under-the surface connections. To begin with,…

All you’ve got to do is win Young Americans is slowly growing on me. For years, Bowie’s 1975 “plastic soul” album was my least-favorite from the 70s. I have always liked the title track and “Fame,” which was Bowie’s first U.S. #1, but most of the rest of the songs are pretty slow moving and seemed to blend one-into-the-other. Then,…

The Prestige is a serious, well made thriller directed by Christopher Nolan. It’s well shot and well acted. It received Oscar nominations for art direction and cinematography. It has plenty of well-known stars including Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall and also Andy Serkis and, of course, David Bowie. Oddly (or not), other than Bowie, each…

This was an unusually good week for Bowie covers— I found and watched several studio-recorded covers that were really well done. I could have easily chosen one of several, and I’m not sure I watched every potentially good newly posted cover video that was posted over the past week. I settled on EgoB’s cover of “Survive” in part because it…

Well, here I am, a day after posting my “final thoughts” on Adam Steiner’s book about Scary Monsters now posting a demo of “Because You’re Young,” from that album. More accurately, this song might have been called “Because I’m Young,” because that’s how the refrain goes, and its part of the collection of Scary Monster demos collectively known as Vampires…

It took me a fairly long time to get through Adam Steiner’s excellent book about my favorite album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). With almost every chapter, I’d stop and want to write something of my own in this verity blog, which slowed my pace. Well, I finally finished it, and though I already wrote much of what came to…

There’s a Marvel comics movie in the theaters right now, The Marvels, that I have no interest in seeing. I subscribed to Disney in large part to see Wandavision, but there are Marvel and Star Wars shows that I might never get around to watching. As for the DC Universe? Well, the first Wonder Woman was pretty good, but otherwise…if…

And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear… Earlier this week in writing about Labyrinth, I mentioned that I had read somewhere that some fans of the movie only know Bowie through his role as Jarreth the Goblin King. I understand the concept but had never actually encountered anyone that fits that description. Then I came across this…

And me, my little red Corvette has driven by - “Zeroes,” Bowie “Zeroes” is one of my favorite Bowie songs from his 80s period. I don’t think it was released as a single and is, I think often overlooked because it’s buried in Never Let Me Down (1987), which is widely regarded as one of Bowie’s weakest albums and representative…

I began this series last week with Into the Night, a movie in which Bowie plays a pretty small part. Not so much this week— Bowie’s role as Jareth the Goblin King is perhaps his most iconic. Well, Bowie fans would probably say his most iconic film role was that of Thomas Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth,…

There were a few good options to choose from for “cover of the week” this week. I’m going with this angry-sounding cover of one of Bowie’s most iconic songs, “Life on Mars.” It’s a real video by a real band that makes its own contribution to this oft-covered song. Actually, while the there are many covers of “Life on Mars,”…

Filling out what’s turned into a Legendary Strardust Cowboy series, this is his cover of Bowie’s first hit. Bowie’s original version is trippy— this makes it seem like something Mr. Rogers would sing, which is to say, “the Ledge” (as those more familiar with him than I call him, rather than, “the Cowboy”) has something to teach Bowie about what…

I mentioned Ziggy’s namesake Thursday, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, and while I have very limited familiarity with his music, I thought I’d post this song, which Bowie covered in 2002 on Heathen. The Cowboy’s original version is a year older than “Spaces Oddity,” which he would later cover. I’m sure I’m forgetting someone, but I think that makes the Cowboy…

This is the second in a series of non-Bowie related posts that I intend to make a regular Friday feature… The theory is that people ski in cold weather, so there has to be a way to dress to bike in cold weather as well. And so there is. Biking is one of my favorite things to do, and serves…

The original idea I had for what’s become the “Divine Symmetry” series came after I was listening to “Woodstock,” specifically the Crosby, Stills and Nash version, and thinking about the use of the term, “stardust,” in the refrain: “We are stardust, we are golden We are billion-year-old carbon And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden” Out of…

“My brother's back at home with his Beatles and his Stones We never got it off on that revolution stuff” - Bowie, “All The Young Dudes” (1972) “We will never be rid of these stars But I hope they live forever” - Bowie, “The Stars Are Out Tonight” (2013) Days after The Rolling Stones released their first studio album in…

Well, the drive-in season is over for 2023, and as such, the Drive-in Saturday Tuesday Movie Review will be put on hold until spring. In its place I plan to run a review of movies in which Bowie appears, the Hooked on the Silver Screen series. For whatever reason, going to the drive-in is one of my favorite things to…

This is the third video from Dennis Graumann to win “cover of the week.” The previous two were of the less-frequently covered “Hallo Spaceboy” and “I’m Afraid of Americans,” but this one is of the song that most frequently appears during my weekly search for new Bowie covers, “‘Heroes.’” As great as the song is, it is so frequently covered…

Let me start by being unambiguous: The Rolling Stones’ new album, Hackney Diamonds is near-great. I write this after listening to it a few times, so this is my initial impression, and of course that might change, but upon hearing that the Stones were coming out with a new album, what I was hoping for was something just like this.…

Loki actor Tom Hiddleston chose to portray a different character for Halloween this year—Ziggy Stardust. The other person in some of these photos is actor Richard Grant, who threw a 70s-themed (maybe a Bowie-themed) Halloween party a few days ago. Grant seems like he’s dressed more like a generic glam-era rocker, but Hiddleston is clearly Bowie. It seems like these…

Note: This is the first in what I intend to be a permanent Friday feature of non-Bowie related posts. We’ll see how long that lasts… Doesn’t it seem to you that a lot of people have COVID? Since some of those people are media personalities, I am pretty sure it’s not just me. Its also not just me who continues…

Why am I beginning a new series in this blog, about the films of David Bowie, with this particular movie? It is far from Bowie’s best movie, and his role is pretty small— hardly more than a cameo. The reason is simply it is the most recent movie I’ve watched, other than documentaries, in which Bowie appeared at all. I…

I was not expecting this to be the second song in my Divine Symmetry series, but I’m still slowly making my way through Adam Steiner’s book about Scary Monsters, which is called Silhouettes and Shadows, and I got to the chapter on “Teenage Wildlife.” Like most of the songs on Scary Monsters, the lyrics of “Teenage Wildlife” don’t make for…