Before the Fall

This is a song about the end of the world. Or, well, the beginning of the end (of the world). "We had five years left to cry in," says Bowie. And we, the people, run frantically around and swim in our doom and kiss each other and smash things and cry and vomit. And miss our mommies. And this guy, the singer, faced now with the end of the world, has one thing on his mind:

Think I saw you in an ice cream parlour, Drinking milkshakes - cold and long, smiling and waving and looking so fine... Don't think you knew you were in this song. And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor! And I thought of Ma and I wanted to get back there-- Your face! Your race! The way that you talk! I kiss you. You're beautiful. I want you to walk.

We've got (five years).

That's all we've got.

I love songs that fall apart. By the end Bowie's voice fades away, shrieking for help or attention or mercy or whatever, and seems to get swallowed by the impending apocalypse.

Here's another song about when the buildings crumble to the ground:

The Fall (Tuvan Igil Version)

Red Hunter, frontman for Peter & the Wolf, tears apart his quiet little ditty "The Fall" with a tuvan igil. (This is basically a violin on drugs made of goatskin with a much coarser sound.) It fits for this version, and for Red's soaring voice and what he wants to say with it... which is: "Who were you before the Fall? I was a singer... I saw the future laid out in dominoes. Now I hunt the buffalo."

But more than wrecked cities, this is a song about the naked skeleton of humankind, forced to rebuild. Or rather, deconstruct -- to some primitive fire-dancing ritualistic lifestyle where all are full and happy and dirty. And everything is a little clearer.