Lyrics series | 4 | from “ Cat People (Putting Out Fire)”
A judgement made can never bend
I’m going to just call this song, “Putting Out the Fire.” Originally composed for the soundtrack of the 1982 movie, Cat People, it has also been used in the soundtracks of the unrelated movies, Atomica and Inglorious Basterds, and a version appears on Bowie’s album, Let’s Dance (so, I think the song has outlived Cat People per se).
Anyway, though this is somewhere on my list of favorite Bowie songs, it’s overall on the edge of being silly. In any case, even divorced from Cat People (which I have never seen but seems like it might be just over the edge of being silly), some of the lyrics seems a little overwrought and exaggerated. That can be said for the above line, but as if often the case, Bowie hit on something that has stuck with me.
On its own, “a judgement made can never bend” reminds me of the permanence of consequences. In this respect, Bowie is once again flitting around his conception of time— time travels in only one direction. On the surface, the sentiment seems contrary to Bowie’s more common idea that nothing lasts forever. Bowie’s changing ways defined him, and he reminds us in song after song that everything eventually changes.
But in this song, Bowie tells us that a judgement made can never bend. And I actually do think the idea fits in to Bowie’s overall worldview. In the book I’ve been reading about Scary Monsters, author Adam Steiner writes of Bowie, “there was no time for looking back unless to plunder or revisit material.” The later he progressed in his career, the more Bowie’s songs would become self-referential or repurpose old devices. But he wasn’t interested in recapturing past successes, instead Bowie wanted to take the seed of an idea and cultivate it into something entirely new (though I also think he liked leaving Easter eggs for diehard fans).
Bowie directly speaks to “looking back” in several songs. In “Golden Years,” Bowie sings, “never look back, walk tall, act fine.” The Tin Machine song, “Prisoner of Love,” opens with the admonition, “don’t look back,” and while that song’s lyrics are somewhat ambiguous, the narrator seems to link looking back to “my own self persecution.” That might provide some insight into the meaning of the sparsely worded song, “Look Back in Anger,” which seems to be about the narrator’s moment of death, at which point he is dissatisfied with his own past. Bowie himself never seemed satisfied with his own past. But despite his reputation as a chameleon, he would often attempt to revise a past concept rather than truly discarding what came before and starting from scratch (though he’d come close to that a few times too).
But revision for Bowie is a forward-looking process. The past is never satisfying for him, perhaps because it is the only thing that cannot bend. So I read “Judgement” in “Putting Out Fire,” as, “the past.” The line, on its own, kinda means, “you can’t change the past,” and is the counterpart to “live in the present” and “embrace change in the future.” One of Bowie’s most reproduced non-musical quotes is, “I don’t know where I’m going, but I promise it won’t be boring.”
But “judgement,” in the song, also does mean, “judgement.” I think, “you can’t take back what you just said.” In a more abstract sense, the outcome of an action is a kind of judgement. A success can be fleeting, but even if transient will forever be a success at a particular moment in time. Similarly, and more in line with the ominous tone of the song, a failure might be used as a learning experience, but on its own, it is still a failure. There’s something about the stark reality of the idea that sticks with me.
Often, in the midst of a moment in crisis, I have the clarity of mind not to look back and think about how I got there, but to accept that I am where I am and focus on how to move on. The idea of unbending judgement might seem unnecessarily dramatic and not even sensible (judgements change all the time), but I actually think what Bowie is getting at is quite healthy. Embedded in the line is the idea of moving on and not lingering in the past.
The context of the rest of the song hints at this meaning. The narrator very much does live in the past and does not seem to be very happy about it. He keeps reminding us that “it’s been so long,” and that, “you wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through.” His heart is “ageless,” but it’s broken and “can never mend.” Indeed, life itself— his heartbeat— is a plague. The narrator here is burdened with regret. He’s looking back in anger, rathe then walking tall and acting fine.
Looking back, though, is not the the true hobgoblin of this song. The true villain is the pointlessness of attempting to change the past. The words, “putting out fire” appears within the song’s refrain followed by, “with gasoline.” Obviously, gasoline will only make the fire worse. Bowie, I think, unlike the song’s narrator would try to do something with the flame. Either that or live in the moment, knowing that the world is burning around him.