David Bowie

Person / 1947 - 2016 / England

English singer‐songwriter

art rock glam rock alternative rock pop rock art pop new wave pop rock

Biography

David Robert Jones, known as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as among the most influential musicians of the 20th century, he was known for his frequent reinvention and visual presentation, and is often referred to as the "chameleon of rock". His music, stagecraft and fashion have had a significant impact on popular culture.

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Elsewhere

Analysed songs (12)

As the World Falls Down

David Bowie

A courtly, almost hypnotic love song written for the film Labyrinth, in which the speaker offers cosmic gifts to a beloved while…

seduction and enchantment love as surrender impermanence

Changes

David Bowie

A restless self-portrait of an artist who treats identity as provisional, staged against a generational standoff between an…

self-reinvention generational conflict impermanence

Golden Years

David Bowie

A slick, danceable reassurance song that keeps promising a golden future while its imagery quietly fills with panic and…

reassurance versus doubt fame and its instability escape and flight

I'm Afraid of Americans

David Bowie

A jittery industrial-rock sketch of a generic American everyman named Johnny, whose consumerist appetites and hollow…

cultural imperialism consumerism paranoia and dread

Let's Dance

David Bowie

A dance-floor invitation built on a simple repeated command that gradually reveals an undertow of anxiety about impermanence and…

desire and vulnerability impermanence performance versus intimacy

Magic Dance

David Bowie

A propulsive novelty-funk number written for the film Labyrinth, in which a chant-like spell is cast to soothe a crying infant…

childhood fear transformation through play ritual and incantation

Panic in Detroit

David Bowie

A hallucinatory street scene fuses American urban unrest with the mythology of revolutionary martyrdom, filtered through a…

revolutionary mythology celebrity worship urban collapse

Queen Bitch

David Bowie

A voyeuristic narrator watches a street-corner seduction unfold from a hotel window, alternately mocking and envying the…

voyeurism and surveillance queer desire and rivalry gender performance and camp

Space Oddity

David Bowie

A dramatized radio transmission between mission control and an astronaut becomes an extended metaphor for detachment and…

isolation fame and alienation dissociation

Underground

David Bowie

Written as the opening theme for Jim Henson's Labyrinth, this song sells escape as salvation while quietly undercutting it.…

escape and flight the seduction of easy comfort childhood vulnerability

Within You

David Bowie

Written for Bowie's Jareth character in Labyrinth, this is a confrontation disguised as a torch song: a possessive figure…

obsession and control power and powerlessness seduction versus manipulation

Young Americans

David Bowie

A restless, jittery portrait of American life told through fragmentary vignettes of couples, sex, race, and disillusionment, all…

Americana and disillusionment race and appropriation consumerism and identity