David Bowie has always been a bit of a mystery and he hasn’t dispelled that view with his “explanation” of the new album The Next Day.
His first release in ten year, The Next Day is a strong album full of your standard enigmatic Bowie songs. The singer hasn’t done any real publicity for the set, so the world has been left to come up with their own interpretations of the music.
Author Ricky Moody (The Ice Storm), who also writes for the literary magazine The Rumpus, took a shot and asked Bowie to comment on his album. “I wanted to think about it in light of what he was thinking about it. I wanted to understand the lexicon of The Next Day, and so I simply asked if he would provide this list of words about his album, assuming, like everyone else waving madly trying to get his attention, that there was not a chance in hell that I would get this list…”
Yet, he did. A simple list of 42 words that supposedly lays out the groundwork to delve deeper into The Next Day.
Effigies
Indulgences
Anarchist
Violence
Chthonic
Intimidation
Vampyric
Pantheon
Succubus
Hostage
Transference
Identity
Mauer
Interface
Flitting
Isolation
Revenge
Osmosis
Crusade
Tyrant
Domination
Indifference
Miasma
Pressgang
Displaced
Flight
Resettlement
Funereal
Glide
Trace
Balkan
Burial
Reverse
Manipulate
Origin
Text
Traitor
Urban
Comeuppance
Tragic
Nerve
Mystification