Lyric Series | 8 | From “Win”

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, in 2016, when I was doing my song-a-day tribute, I came to better appreciate the song, “Fascination” (yes, many of the songs on the album have single-word names). And now I find myself listening to “Win” over and over, as if it were a new song.

For whatever reason (I might have read it somewhere), I have thought that what this song is really about is how the need to win an argument as detracting from a relationship. “All you’ve got to do is win,” is meant almost as an accusation— the narrator attributing to his lover winning as her (?) only objective. Kind of a counterpart to the sentiment of the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out.” But today, I’m not so sure that’s what the song is about, and regardless, I’m taking my own, different meaning.

Part of my newfound interest in the song might be because I have been mishearing one of the lines. The central lyrics of the song are:

Now your smile is spreading thin
Seems you’re trying not to lose
Since I’m not supposed to win
All you’ve got to do is win

I have been hearing, “I’m not supposed to win” as, “I’m not supposed to grin,” which is in fact an actual line from later in the song. “Grin” doesn’t add a whole lot to meaning, but the win/win dichotomy adds weight to the interpretation of the song as being about lovers’ arguments.

But what I’m locking on to is the key line, “All you’ve got to do is win.” Later, the song concludes with that line, followed by a closing refrain of “it ain’t over.” This follows in the tradition of Bowie songs that end with a repeated line sort of wrapping up the moral of the story. I’m thinking of songs I’ve recently commented on, like “Rock and Roll Suicide,” which ends with “gimme your hands” alternately because “you’re not alone” and “you’re wonderful,” as well as “Zeroes,” which ends with the depressing chant of, “doesn’t matter.”

Read in one way, the “it,” in, “it ain’t over,” is the relationship. The narrator is holding out hope that, like the Beatles sang, we can work it out, if only we move off of just always trying to be right. But read another way, “all you’ve got to do is win” is an earnest pep talk, and “it ain’t over” is a reminder to get back in the fight. Although I think either interpretation can work, I’m finding inspiration in the latter.

In my new understanding of the song, Bowie might even be singing to himself. This would actually justify rhyming “win” with “win.” The line, “Since I’m not supposed to win,” is an internalization of societal expectations. In going from the first person to the second with the next line, “all you’ve got to do is win,” Bowie is externalizing the version of himself who can overcome the odds. He’s creating his own aspirational model.

Winning is a harsh standard. Bowie won’t settle for putting in a good effort. “All you’ve got to do” remains ironic in this usage in that it ignores what goes into winning. I realize that I’m actually flipping the message of the line from “winning” not being important— and the goal of winning in the context of a relationship being destructive, to winning as all that matters, in defiance of expectations. Later in the week I will write about “Jump, They Say” (1993) which expresses similar disdain for the crowd’s expectations. Bowie has no time for, “it’s not about winning or losing, its how you play the game.” He’s an ends guy, not a means guy, at least in this song.

This reading of the song is supported by the inclusion of the line, “Seems you’re trying not to lose,” which is the type of thing I hear from sports commentators explaining why a team trying to sit on a lead is actually in danger. Bowie himself was at a precarious point in both his career and his life. After his first span of sustained success as a glam-rocker, Bowie might have been talking to himself. By dragging out the lifespan of Ziggy or a Ziggy-like persona, Bowie was trying not to lose what he had attained. With Young Americans, he was taking the risk of changing his look and sound, in order not just to preserve his status but to grow.

Meanwhile, in his personal life, Bowie was spiraling. His addictions were reaching their darkest hours and there was probably an expectation that Bowie wouldn’t survive much longer. So “winning” was not simply success with a new and different album, but pulling himself out of the abyss. He might not have even fully realized how far he had sunk while making Young Americans, but it wouldn’t be too much longer before he’d retreat to Berlin with Iggy Pop to get healthier. On some instinctual level, though, he might have realized that he wasn’t supposed to win (that is, survive), but all he needed to do to beat that expectation was to remain alive (which counted as winning).

In hearing this, I also think of “Queen Bitch,” in which Bowie pledges to himself, “I can do better than that.” He sees his place in the world as competing against forces that would run him over, but he reminds himself that he has it within him to succeed. The crowd might have low expectations of Bowie’s narrators, but in these songs Bowie thinks more of his own abilities, if only he pushes himself. Its hard to overstate how much I can relate to that.

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The video features Canadian singer Andrew McPherson delivering a faithful, heartfelt version of the song. “Win” never got an official video.

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“Win” lyrics

Me, I hope that I’m crazy
I feel you driving and you’re only the wheel
Slow down, let someone love you
Oh, I’ve never touched you since I started to feel
If there’s nothing to hide me
Then you’ve never seen me hanging naked and wired
Somebody lied, I say it’s hip
To be alive
Now your smile is spreading thin
Seems you’re trying not to lose
Since I’m not supposed to win
All you’ve got to do is win
That’s all you gotta do (ooh, it ain’t over)
Me, I’m fresh on your pages
Secret thinker sometimes listening aloud
Life lies dumb on its heroes
Wear your wound with honor, make someone proud
Someone like you should not be allowed
To start any fires
Now your smile is spreading thin
Seems you’re trying not to lose
Since I’m not supposed to win
All you’ve got to do is win
That’s all you gotta do (ooh, it ain’t over)
Now your smile is spreading thin
Seems you’re trying not to lose
Since I’m not supposed to win
All you’ve got to do is win
That’s all you gotta do (all you got to do is win)
Now your smile is spreading thin (seek and believe in you)
Seems you’re trying not to lose (it ain’t over, no no)
Since I’m not supposed to grin (that’s all you got to do)
All you’ve got to do is win (it ain’t over, no, oh)
(Seek and believe in you)
All you’ve got to do is win (it ain’t over, no, no)
Woo hooh, all you’ve got
Is all you’ve got
(It ain’t over)
It ain’t over