David Bowie doesn't do interviews, does do word association
David Bowie has given his first interview on the topic of his wonderful recent album ‘The Next Day’ in the form of a list of 42 words, or a “work flow diagram”.
Speaking to American author Rick Moody for literary journal The Rumpus, the singer provided the list of words below to shed light on the mindset behind the record; there’s a great deal of bodily and mortal imagery in there, what with “chthonic”, “osmosis”, “funereal”, “tragic” and “burial”, but on the bright side, there’s also “flight”, “glide” and “indifference” suggesting that he’s somewhat at peace with these ideas.
In the flabbergasted words of Rick Moody, “there is only the work now, and the silence is part of the work, the work is otherwise complete, the way it is complete with Thomas Pynchon, and the way it was with J. D. Salinger, but, that said…I persuaded Bowie, somehow, to give me a sort of a work flow diagram for ‘The Next Day’, because 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, because who the fuck am I, some novelist killing time writing occasionally about music, and yet astonishingly the list appeared, and it appeared without further comment, which is really excellent”.
Read the full list of Bowie’s words below.
“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”
Columbia released ‘The Next Day’ ont he 11th March 2013.