Day 171 | Jump They Say

Bowie made a lot of great music after this song, but my free association with it is “his last great pop song.” It is as catchy as anything he did, and it combines the characteristic dark lyrics with upbeat sound. Unlike many other Bowie songs, though, I don’t think the meaning here is very mysterious: “don’t listen to the crowd,” the crowd that wants you to jump. And if the lyrics weren’t clear enough, the video cements the context as a command to jump off a building. The one clever wrinkle to the message is that the “crowd” is not a crowd of blood-lustful onlookers, but dour men in suits, advertisements and commercials. This is a pop song against pop culture. I don’t think this was a very big hit, but had he released it even five years earlier I suspect it would have been. Final note: this was probably the point in Bowie’s life where he looked his absolute best—fit, sober, fashionable. Album: Black Tie, White Noise