Day 321 | Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud

This is a fundamentally juvenile song about a boy who has a connection with a magic mountain but not so much with his own village. Villagers decide to execute the boy, the mountain comes to life and destroys the village, the boy becomes upset (though he isn’t actually responsible for anyone else’s behavior). Though it is a silly song, to me it functions as kind of a Rosetta Stone connecting Bowie’s very early period, which he started distancing himself from as soon as he started making good music, with the rest of his career. Long after Bowie stopped performing most of his pre-Hunky Dory songs, and with a very small handful of exceptions all of his pre-Space Oddity songs, this one would creep back in a live performance here or compilation disc there. It even made it into a medley played in Ziggy Stardust the Motion Picture (today’s post). It must have meant something to him. Album: Space Oddity