Day 199 | Without You

This is one of those songs that I almost always listen to in the context of the album, rarely on its own. Like other such songs, on the rare occasion I hear it out of context, I am reminded that it is a pretty good song. It isn’t complex and it isn’t anywhere close to one of Bowie’s best, but I’ll take it. That said, as I contemplate the song I can see shapes in the clouds, which is to say significance where it might not actually exist. Bowie’s expression of love is framed in the negative—he contemplates helplessness at the prospect of being “without you.” He repeated the theme on his next album when he covered “God Only Knows.” Fast forward two decades and Bowie recorded a song with the band, Placebo with a similar title, “Without You I’m Nothing.” It might be an illusion, but I see a link. I’ll get to that tomorrow… Album: Let’s Dance