And I’m back again, after yet another hiatus! I’ve been preoccupied for a while because I had a baby! The song I’ll be discussing in this post, There is a Happy Land, is a great one to transition back from where I’ve been, as it is about childhood.
There is a Happy Land is track five on the 1967 self-titled David Bowie album. What draws me to this song is its resemblance to my favorite book, The Little Prince, by Antoine de St. Exupery. If you’re unfamiliar with The Little Prince, it is about a pilot who crash lands in the desert and meets a strange little boy who has been traveling to different planets and is visiting Earth from his home, Asteroid B-612. The author recounts how the Little Prince reminds him of his own childhood and how different children are from the grown-ups they eventually become. There are so many life lessons wrapped into this beautiful story, but among them is the idea that as we become adults, we lose some of the magic of imagination and wonder that we possessed as children, and that is the sentiment that I experience when I listen to this song.
The song is sung from a child’s point of view and describes a place where children play and grown-ups are not welcome, because in this place, children can be themselves and don’t have to worry about the sensibilities of adults.
This song is not the only instance that I’ve recognized a parallel between David Bowie and The Little Prince. The one that stands out in my mind immediately is the album cover art on Bowie’s 2003 Reality. His animated image looks strikingly similar to the illustrated Little Prince:
Another parallel between Bowie and The Little Prince is their approach to death. The Little Prince has to die in order to return to his home planet, so he arranges to be bitten by a poisonous snake. Bowie, too, knowing that death was imminent, took the reigns and created an album as a parting gift, released just days before his death.
The Little Prince was first published in 1943, four years before Bowie was born. I could not find anything to verify that Bowie was influenced in any way by The Little Prince, but I choose to believe that he was. I also choose to believe that perhaps they have both returned to their home planet, maybe together, or maybe they are even one in the same, looking down on us from space. After all, if I have learned anything from my favorite artist and my favorite book, it is to be swept away by the magic of my own imagination. 🙂
Neat connection between those two things that, in part, I lost strongly associate with you 🙂