David Bowie Explains Enigmatic “The Next Day” With Enigmatic List of Words…

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