Top 10 David Bowie Songs

I don't remember when the first time I heard a David Bowie song was, but I know that the first time I ever heard one and paid attention to it was in high school. My dad gave me a copy of Diamond Dogs, and I ripped it to my computer and put it on my Dell DJ mp3 player. The DJ didn't organize songs by album. It organized them by artist and then alphabetically by title, so my David Bowie playlist started with "1984" and "Big Brother". I remember selecting the album and hitting play one night in the car and thinking "This is amazing" about halfway through the first song. Over the years I acquired more and more Bowie music, and he very quickly became my favorite artist. When I finally got a copy of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, I though, "This is the greatest album of all time." I've yet to find any evidence to the contrary.

Musically, Bowie's work is incredibly diverse and innovative. Every album has its own distinct sound and demonstrates growth and evolution. He explores creative, non-typical arrangements on songs like "Time" and experiments with instrumentation ("Soul Love" for example). Many of his albums are seen as clearly part of one genre but also contain many elements that are seemingly unrelated, such as the jazzy, avant garde piano parts found throughout the quintessentially glam album Aladdin Sane. His vocal delivery ranges from the raw yelling at the end of "Rock & Roll Suicide" to the almost stream-of-consciousness spoken word verses of "Hang On To Yourself" and everything in between. Musically, Bowie songs can be raw, loud and dirty like "Queen Bitch" or soft and contemplative like "Lady Stardust". Somehow he manages to again and again pull all of these distinctive elements together into cohesive albums that feel natural.

The thing that most makes Bowie's songs stick with me, though, is the lyrically brilliance. Again there is a lot of diversity to be found here, with songs that range from the straightforwardness of "Changes" and "Rebel, Rebel" to the incredibly abstract verses found in "Panic in Detroit" and "Moonage Daydream". No matter how realistic or metaphorical the lyrics may be, they are always packed with meaning. While often dealing with general, often-explored themes like society, love, free will, and fascism, the analysis and message are never simple. Everyday life is both oppressive and beautiful depending on your perspective. Love may come at the cost of your dreams. Is lust more satisfying than self-control? Free will may be the basis of existence, but it's also a burden. Fascism has awful consequences, but the prospect of a higher authority to solve all our problems is wildly seductive. It seems that every David Bowie song has at least a couple of possible interpretations and is capable of inspiring a great deal of deep thought and conversation.

These aspects of Bowie's music are , in my opinion, best seen in his glam years, so my list will focus on his four major glam albums (which happen to be my favorite) as well as one additional entry that was written in the same time period.

1. Life On Mars?
This song draws on the same sci-fi theme that was found in his first hit song "Space Oddity". The message, however, is quite different. Through simple piano verses and a crescendoing chorus of strings, this song conveys the mundaneness of the day to day and the jaded attitude that we all develop toward injustice and tragedy in our daily lives. Out of this comes a sincere hope for something that hasn't been seen or done a million times before. I think everyone has experienced a time when life has seemed boring and hopeless - more something to be endured than enjoyed. The song captures that and offers a plea for something out of the ordinary to come along and save us from the lives we've created. This is summed up in the speculatively hopeful line "Is there life on Mars?"

2. Queen Bitch
Although this song is found on the album Hunky Dory, it could have easily been placed on Ziggy Stardust or Aladdin Sane. It stands out from the rest of the album in that it makes use of the distorted guitar chords and flippant delivery that would come to characterize glam rock. It was ahead of it's time and set the tone for the rest of Bowie work for the next few years. The lyrical themes revolve around meaningless sex and the clash between personal morals and physical desire. Innovative music with deep lyrical themes makes this song Bowie at his best.

3. Five Years
This opening track to The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars resumes many of the themes from "Life on Mars?" but examines them from a different perspective. Told from the point of view of a martian observing the earth from a spaceship, "Five Years" examines the reactions of people finding out that the Earth will be destroyed in five years. Rather than being jaded toward their plight or disgusted at their reactions, the observer only sees the beauty of the human experience and feels a great deal of empathy toward them. Instead of a human looking toward the sky for hope and wanting to transcend their surroundings, this song tells the story of someone in the sky looking down on the humans and seeing something worth loving. It's a brilliant reminder of the wonder of human life.

4. Moonage Daydream
This is one of Bowie's mostly lyrically ambiguous songs. It opens with raw guitar chords and progresses to combine strings, piano, guitar, bass and drums into something mysterious, spacey and memorable. The uncharacteristically long instrumental parts really set this song apart from others on the album (though this is a theme that Bowie would later pick up when writing and recording his Berlin Trilogy). This song is unlike anything else on the album and I could listen to it a thousand times in a row and never get tired of it.

5. Starman
This is my favorite song of all time. Musically, it exemplifies the style of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust era, and the lyrics convey a message of hope for humanity. The song tells of a (Martian) savior descending from the heavens promising humanity that "It's all worthwhile!" and calming their fears of the impending apocalypse. It also explores the idea of a generation finding a hope for a better future despite the suspicious nature of their parents. This is Bowie at his musical and lyrical finest, and the Bowie at the Beeb version is just as good as the original. The simple guitar and drum parts are augmented to perfect with the strings on the chorus and these simple elements combine to form one of the most hopeful and moving pieces of music ever recorded.

6. Rock & Roll Suicide
This song starts simple and builds into one of the most powerful songs on the album. The simple opening guitar chords find Ziggy Stardust, humanity's failed savior alone and depressed. He has failed his mission to save humanity with love and hope and is now a washed up hack with no future. As the song builds, though, Ziggy find salvation and redemption in the love for humanity that brought him to Earth in the first place. In this way, humanity ends up saving him as he decides to stay with them on a planet he knows will be destroyed. The songs ends with raw vocals yelling "You're not alone!" in much the same way that "Five Years" ended with the repeating refrain of "Five years, that's all we got!" In this way, Ziggy rediscovers the value of human life whether it survives or dies. Whether it accomplishes anything grand or fails.

7. All the Young Dudes
Bowie actually wrote this song for another band I love called Mott The Hoople when he heard they were going to break up due to lack of success. The legend is that at first Bowie wrote "Suffragette City" for them, and then, when Ian Hunter didn't like it, he sat down on the floor and wrote "All the Young Dudes" instead. This song and the album of the same name that Bowie produces for them saved Mott the Hoople and they went on to create their best work. Bowie later recorded his own version of this song, and it explores many of the same themes as the album Ziggy Stardust. Through characterization, the song examines disenfranchisement, feelings of disconnection, and the search for identity in an uncertain world.

8. Watch That Man
This opening track from Aladdin Sane sets the tone for the entire album. Its distorted guitars, high speed piano riffs and wild lyrics exemplify the glam movement at the height of its popularity. The lyrics are reminiscent of the attitude discussed in "Life on Mars?" but with a different twist. Rather than searching for salvation, "Watch That Man" depicts people searching for hope in the party life... and finding it just as empty. "It was so-so."

9. Time
Unique. Dynamic. Diverse. This song's asymmetrical arrangement and metaphorical lyrics communicate how time changes you and how you have to live with the consequences of the decisions you've made. Time/reality is decided by human decisions, but that doesn't mean we control everything. We are constantly forced to live in a reality that we helped created. The second verse describes a man who gave up his dreams for his lover and the resulting emptiness in life that neither of them can escape. This song is complex and original both lyrically and musically. It doesn't offer answers nearly so much as it provokes thought.

10. Big Brother
This song is like a perversion of "Starman". Instead of a society eagerly anticipating the arrival of a savior who wants to give their lives meaning, it instead describes a society waiting for a fascist ruler to come and save them from the responsibility of making their own decisions. "Someone to save us. Someone to follow." It describes the sweet temptation of deferring responsibility but also the danger of allowing someone to take absolute control. While mostly satirical, the lyrics during the acoustic guitar bridge very clearly communicate the absurdity of the proposition. Much like "Time", "Big Brother" focuses on the reality that we create with our decisions and the consequences that we have to live with.