Bowie songs of the year #5: “Scream Like a Baby” (1980)

The epitome of what I’m identifying as the #5 story of the year was the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, however I actually think that development was only the standout example of right-wing government action to change the way citizens live and think. For this reason, I’m selecting as the representative Bowie song, “Scream Like a Baby,” which has nothing directly related to the Dobbs decision, but very much is about a dystopian future in which the protagonist is forced to learn to be a part of socie-soc-soci-tsociety…

Think about these instances of rightist governmental actions that took place in 2022:
– Ron DeSantis, who ran for re-election as a candidate selected by God (not making that up), signed the so-called “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” designed to ban schools or workplaces from discussing or even acknowledging racism.
– The same Florida governor, along with fellow-traveler Texas Governor Greg Abbot used public dollars to human-traffic migrants to Martha’s Vinyard and other Democratic-leaning communities to try to prove liberals to be hypocrites
– NPR recently reported that, “over the past two years, state lawmakers introduced at least 306 bills targeting trans people, more than any previous period. A majority of this legislation, 86%, focuses on trans youth.”
– Clarence Thomas’s concurrence to Dobbs argued that, in keeping with the logic of the decision to overturn Roe, the Supreme Court “should reconsider” past ruling legalizing contraception, same-sex marriage and even same sex relationships.
– While Dobbs did not actually outlaw abortion, several Republican elected officials moved not only to to just that, but to attempt to restrict the ability of residents of an anti-choice state to travel to another state for an abortion. Sen. Lindsey Graham (amongst others) introduced legislation to ban abortion nationally, throwing the fig-leaf idea of states rights out the window.
– Republican legislatures have passed laws making it increasingly difficult to vote— especially for constituencies such as urban residents, minorities and students, who statistically are more likely to vote for Democrats.
– The Supreme Court also struck down a New York gun law restricting concealed-carry. They joined Republicans on the state level in changing laws to further the proliferation of guns.

Beyond these and many, many more examples of so-called “culture war” laws and related actions, I would add to that government action designed to undermine confidence in public health actions, especially around the still-raging Covid-19 pandemic, which most elected officials wanted to pretend was over in the months leading up to this year’s mid-terms.

All of this, and again, much, much more, is often presented by the right-wingers as “freedom.” George Orwell— and Franz Kafka would be delighted at the ironic use of the word in this context. Rightist appropriation of words like “conservative” and “libertarian” have long-since taken on an up-is-down quality. Rather than the mythical paradigm of “hands-off, small government,” empowered rightists made the most of the heavy hand of whatever branches of government they controlled.

“Scream Like a Baby” is one of my favorite lesser-known Bowie songs. Bowie, especially in some of his songs from the 1970s such as “Panic in Detroit” (1973) and “Diamond Dogs” (1974) described dystopian futures. He also had plenty of songs about monomaniacal demagogues, like “Saviour Machine” (1970) or “Somebody up There Likes Me” (1975). Few of these songs touch on what a government might actually do to its citizens in one of these imaginary dystopias. “Scream Like a Baby” very much does.

The song’s protagonist, named Sam, is blindfolded, chained, drugged and thrown into a wagon, presumably by some sort of police, to be forcibly conditioned to be part of a society that promotes commercialism and war and oppresses those who “mix with other colors” as well as “faggots.” The song has no happy ending. “Sam” does not emerge as a victorious rebel. The closing line of the song reminds us that the narrator, himself a victim of state-sponsored oppression, and Sam, “never had no fun.”

The video is a compilation of the song’s evolution. It begins with the highly embarrassing “I Am A Laser” (1974), written by Bowie but performed by Ava Cherry. Bowie would later adapt the music for “Scream Like a Baby” but thankfully abandoned the lyrics, which I’ll leave for you to listen to on your own. The second version of the song is an earlier iteration of “Scream Like a Baby,” which I had heard about but never actually heard before finding this video. The lyrics are slightly different than those of the final version.

The draft version of the song clears up one small point that has confused me— the meaning of the line, “Sam was a gun.” For a long time before I actually saw the lyrics, I thought Sam was “a god.” What did it mean that Sam was “a gun?” Apparently it meant nothing at all. Before the song’s final version, Bowie sang, “Scream like a baby; scream like a gun.” That makes a little more sense, but Bowie often liked to confuse the matter by inserting chaotic nonsense into his songs.

And that’s a good way to think of many of the right-wing laws of 2022– chaotic nonsense.