Backseat Mafia contributors shared their loving memories of David Bowie following the announcement of his death.
Here is my contribution that appears in the David Bowie (1947 – 2016), In Loving Memory article on Backseat Mafia:
Sound and Vision
It really is impossible to pick a favourite David Bowie song, so I’m going to explain what Sound and Vision means to me personally.
I should begin by explaining that I’m not a Bowie superfan. I don’t own all his rarities. I don’t even own all of his albums. He did, however, appear on the playlist at my wedding (Modern Love); provide me with one of my favourite songs to jump around to at retro club nights (Rebel Rebel); warp my impressionable young mind in one of my favourite films (Labyrinth); and gave me so many other music related memories.
I wasn’t alive when Sound and Vision was released, but I remember hearing it when I was a kid. It was only later in my life that I fell in love with it. Firstly because, for a song that was produced in the late 70s, it sounds quite 80s to me and I adore 80s music. Mostly, however, because of how I relate to it. Bowie called it his “ultimate retreat song” and, as I consider myself to be quite introverted and often become locked in my own head, I feel I have always related to that – “Pale blinds drawn all day. Nothing to do, nothing to say. Blue, blue”.
Despite the lyrics being about retreating, musically it is upbeat and I love that contradiction. There’s the swishing sound of the drum, Bowie’s saxophone, the bright descending synth, bouncing bass and Mary Hopkin’s “doo-doo-doo-doo” lines that actually give it a joyful sound. Bowie doesn’t start singing until halfway through – something I found quite bizarre when I first heard it – but when his vocals do arrive it does actually sound like he’s sitting in a room and has just spontaneously decided to sing along. It’s simple and evokes the mood perfectly. The other layers of his vocals kick in suddenly like the synth. Then, unexpectedly, the song fades out leaving you wanting more.
Sound and Vision has floated around in my subconscious for years but when the most important person in my world gave me a compilation mix with it on a couple of years ago, I rediscovered my connection to it along with the links that I have to the people in my life through Bowie’s music. The title of my website (Sound and Fiction) the subtitle and even the colours of the site (shades of blue) are actually inspired by the song. My round-up blogs are called ‘gifts of sound and fiction’ because they are about what has inspired me to write in that moment – “I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of sound and vision”. I have spent a lot of time since Monday morning recalling these and other ways that David Bowie’s music and words have inspired, moved or comforted me.
This week we’ve sadly said goodbye to the man who epitomised ‘sound and vision’ for me.