Let all the Bugle Boys boogie

OK, this entry is really just an excuse to post a video of the Andrew’s Sisters singing, “The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B,” which is actually a clip from the 1941 Abbot and Costello movie, Buck Privates. The Bowie connection is this— “Starman” was released a mere 31 years later. In it, Bowie commends all the children to boogie. Seems like a different meaning. Actually, it seems like a different world. I’m writing this in 2023, 31 years ago was 1992. Pop music has evolved, but not that much. Nor has its idioms, though, what do I know? If I was my current age (54) in 1972, I probably wouldn’t have even been aware of “Starman” and probably would only have thought of “boogie” in the Andrews Sisters’ sense, as a style of jazz music, rather than in the Bowie sense, as a style of dancing.

Actually, as I watch this video, the shared use of that word and its evolution are not the only things Bowie has in common with the Andrews Sisters, or at least their era. I don’t think the actual Andrews Sisters were directly inspirational to Bowie, but Swing music clearly was. His attire during the Serious Moonlight Tour in 1983 featured Zoot Suits and fedoras — very slightly modernized 40s style fashions. Then, and at other points in his career, he too employed brass (if not a bugle, certainly a sax).

And then, there’s the Andrews Sisters’ uniforms… Obviously, this scene was from a movie that was filmed and released as the US was on the verge of entering World War II (though notably, it was released before Pearl Harbor). The Sisters were wearing female Army uniforms. But they kind of look like they are in drag, especially if you focus on their jackets and ties. The last two days I posted videos from Janelle Monáe, who presents as nonbinary and often wears clothing that evoke masculine attire in ways not too dissimilar from the Andrews Sisters’ uniforms. I’m not suggesting that the Andrews Sisters were dressing as men, or deliberately being ambiguous about their gender, but there seems to be a common thread to how the way they dressed was attractive then, with the way Monáe dresses now, to the way Bowie dressed say, when he wore a skirt-suit on Saturday Night Live in 1979.

Also, while this is a clip from a movie and was not filmed as a video per se, it functions perfectly as a video. Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator when it came to music videos, but he had to have been informed by how music was presented in movies like this.