FANMIX: The Doctor as presented by David Bowie

[remindmeofthe]

Welcome to my very first fanmix! I've never bothered before because I don't usually think in music, but conversations with 10littlebullets (esp. the one about how David Bowie is obviously a Time Lord), inspired me to find out if I could do one about the Doctor that was composed entirely of Bowie songs.

Hint: yes I could. Easily.

This is kind of a work in progress. The class I took on Bowie's work this past semester only covered, like, a third of his musical output. I may tweak and add to this as I continue listening to albums we didn't cover. Also, the end kind of trails off by necessity, since the arc they've been setting up for Eleven isn't complete yet. You may see more versions of this fanmix in future.

Also I definitely did not make a cover, because my ability in re: visual arts and Photoshop is comically limited. If anyone's bored and wants to throw one together, I'll put it up and (of course) give you credit.

This fanmix is specifically about the Doctor's arc in New Who and how he's dealt with the Time War, his grief and his guilt, and with being the last of the Time Lords. And, most specifically of all, with being the Doctor.



Please see after the list for a bunch of notes about why I chose these songs and put them in this order. I numbered the files so that they show up in the right order in the folder.



1. "Shadow Man" (never officially released LIES the information from the site I was referring to is out-of-date; this song has actually surfaced on a couple of single releases, but never on a major album. This version is from the album Toy, a 2001 recording that has not seen an official release but can easily be found with the right Google search. Please note that the lyrics in this version are slightly different from those provided in the link above, especially the lines repeated at the end.)

Take a turn and see his smile
Made of nothing but loneliness
Just take a walk and be a friend
To the Shadow Man

*

2. "Fantastic Voyage" (Lodger, 1979)

We're learning to live with somebody's depression
And I don't want to live with somebody's depression
We'll get by I suppose
But any sudden movement I've got to write it down
They wipe out an entire race and I've got to write it down
But I'm still getting educated but I've got to write it down

*

3. "Space Oddity" (acoustic version from 1979, available on Scary Monsters . . . and Super Creeps. Again, there's a slight but significant different in lyrics.)

Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?

*

4. "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" (Let's Dance, 1983)

And I've been putting out fire
With gasoline

See these eyes so red
Red like jungle burning bright
Those who feel me near
Pull the blinds and change their minds
It's been so long

*

5. "Candidate (demo version)" (bonus track from 1990 rerelease of the 1974 Diamond Dogs album)

I make it a thing, when I'm on my own to relieve myself
I make it a thing, when I gazelle on stage to believe in myself
I make it a thing, to glance in window panes and look pleased with myself
Yeah, and pretend I'm walking home

*

6. "Ashes to Ashes" (Scary Monsters . . . and Super Creeps, 1980)

My mama said to get things done
You'd better not mess with Major Tom

*

7. "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" ('hours . . .', 1999)

I am a drug
I am a dragon
I am the best jazz you've ever seen
I am a dragon
I am the sky
I am the blood at the corner of your eye
I found the secrets, I found gold
I find you out before you grow old
I find you out before you grow old

*

8. "Fame" (Young Americans, 1975)

Fame, makes a man take things over
Fame, lets him loose, hard to swallow
Fame, puts you there where things are hollow
Fame

*

9. "Lady Stardust" (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, 1972)

And he was alright, the band was altogether
Yes he was alright, the song went on forever
And he was awful nice
Really quite paradise
And he sang all night long



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This fanmix functions as a whole as much as it does through the individual songs; one or two of the song choices are more about the contribution to the whole than they are about the songs themselves.

"Shadow Man" is basically a gift dropped in my lap. I mean, check out those lyrics! If I didn't know this song had been extant for decades, I'd swear Bowie wrote the damn thing about the Doctor in New Who, especially Nine. It's a perfect opening for this fanmix, lyrically, melodically, and in terms of expectations - this song is a piano ballad, pretty and wistful and nothing like what you think of when you think of David Bowie. In anyone else's hands, it could well devolve into a treacly mess, but this is Bowie. "Treacly" is not in his vocabulary.

"Fantastic Voyage" is also a bit deceptive. In the context of Doctor Who, the title sounds like it should be about travelling in the TARDIS and encountering adventure after adventure, and it kind of is! In a metaphorical sense. In a more literal sense, it's about coping with and making sense of grief and depression, which is pretty much Nine's story arc in a nutshell.

Credit where credit is due: I got the idea of associating "Space Oddity" with the Doctor from 10littlebullets. But I chose the acoustic version for this instead of the radio version we all know by heart simply from having heard it a billion times because a) it's awesome and I wanted an excuse to share it, not even gonna lie about that, and b) it goes against our expectations of the song in that way acoustic versions will do. The style of play is more intimate and less urgent; Bowie has removed the second reference to a "tin can" to simply leave Major Tom floating . . . somewhere; and there is a gap of silence toward the beginning that confuses the brain and, by virtue of its placement, tells a large part of the story. When you're used to the radio version of a song as ubiquitous as this one, hearing a different version trips you up and cuts you off, and that's the effect I want. Within this fanmix, this song serves as a bridge from Nine to Ten, and let's not forget: Ten was never quite right. His regeneration went sideways and not only did he never recover from the damage, but he kept right on breaking till the very end.

"Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" is about a guy who's all screwed up and goes around screwing up things (and people) in turn. There are some songs here whose inclusion I went back and forth on. This is not one of them. Musically, this song switches things up, introducing a change from the more relaxed and quieter sounds of the previous songs.

"Candidate" introduces the strongly cynical theme that's going to stick around for the rest of the mix. The Doctor's getting pretty full of himself and his image. In matching this mix to the show's chronology, I'd say this song kicks in during "Forest of the Dead": "I'm the Doctor. Look me up."

"Ashes to Ashes" is a weird song. The lyrics are discordant and nonsensical (Bowie wrote them with a "cut-up" method he uses, fitting together randomly generated snatches of sentences and lyrics), the music is unusual, and the whole thing is a sequel song to "Space Oddity" that puts a much more depressing spin on Major Tom's story. I picked it because of its contribution to the fanmix as a whole; it provides a coda to "Space Oddity," it jars against the more conventional-sounding melodies in the previous songs, and it injects some more confusion. This song resists attempts to analyze it on its own. It requires context. Much like Ten at this point, it sounds good, but a close look reveals that it just doesn't make any sense. (I also want to warn for a relatively mild racial slur; it's not on the level of the N-word but it's definitely an "Oh, David Bowie, no" kind of moment.)

"The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" could totally also work on a fanmix for the Master. This is another bridge song, taking us from Ten, now completely broken, to Eleven, who is more functionally whole but definitely hasn't shaken off Ten's ego issues. At this point, the more melodic music of the earlier songs is just a memory. (This file is one of those obnoxious ones where the last dozen seconds contains the beginning of the next song. I could pretend that's symbolic but really I just don't feel like teaching myself how to use a program that would let me lop that bit off.)

"Fame" is about the dangers of buying into your own press; perhaps ironically, it's also one of Bowie's best-known songs. Eleven has set himself up for a fall, bigtime, and I doubt I'll find a song from Bowie that can express that any more clearly.

Yeah, so pretty much by necessity I can't take it much further just yet, but I decided to end with the dual meanings of "Lady Stardust." The song is a ballad, like "Shadow Man" at the beginning; devoid of its original context, it's sweetly hopeful with an echo of sadness, which represents where I'm hoping Eleven's story will be by the end of series six. In the context of its album, though, it's a very different song. Ziggy Stardust is a narrative album set in a dystopia where the human race has used up almost all the planet's resources and the end is nigh. The title character is a singer who makes contact with an alien race that claims to bring hope, but actually they're just a bunch of joyriding jerks who end up tearing Ziggy to pieces so they can use his body to exist in our world, since they are made of anti-matter. (If that sounds familiar: yes, it's the ending of "The Three Doctors," and yes, the first time Bowie laid it out explicitly in an interview was months after "The Three Doctors" aired. Coincidence, I'm sure. Additional geek bonus: the back cover of the album is Bowie standing in a phonebox.) So this song, about the rise of Ziggy's career, is also about the path to his death and the destruction of the final hope humanity had to cling to. Read its inclusion here however you like; I told you I prefer the hopeful reading, but I also told you that the cynical theme introduced in "Candidate" is present for the entire rest of the fanmix.

Comments

[dynastessa]

SO TAKING.

And when I've had a listen, I will be back for discussion! Or simply to squee a little more.

It looks amazing.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

:D

Thanks! Enjoy.

[karaokegal.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! And a bunch of Bowie tracks I don't have on my Itunes. EXCELLENT! I'm wondering if this could be a meme challenge as well. To make a mix for one character (or pairing) based on one artist.

[remindmeofthe.livejournal.com]

Ooh, it might be a fun challenge comm, too.

Enjoy the music!