My intention for this blog is to discuss my favorite Bowie songs in chronological order, but I have to start with this song. I have to start here because this is where my lifelong obsession began.
People who know what a big Bowie fan I am often ask me what my favorite Bowie song is and are usually somewhat surprised when I tell them it’s the opening track from Labyrinth, Underground. They are stunned that, considering all of the hits and all of the critically acclaimed albums, I would pick a song from the soundtrack of a cult film that was a box office disappointment, a song that never even broke the top ten of the British charts. I am not saying it is his best song (which is a far more difficult question to answer), but it is my favorite.
The song begins with an enchanting synthesizer sound, like a sprinkling of fairy dust, a foreshadowing that something magical is coming. This is immediately followed by the electro-synth pop sounds so characteristic of the 80s – bubble gum drum machine, synthetic bass, a combination of both airy and pointed synthesizer sounds, electric rhythm guitar. I realize that many people regard this style of music as cheesy, but to me it feels cozy, comfortable. The 80s are, after all, the decade of my childhood. These sounds form the foundation of the song, and after a quick but bombastic sax solo, Bowie begins to sing. His voice feels like steam, slowly creeping in and surrounding me in a cloud of warmth. The first lines of the verse are, “No one can blame you/For walking away/Too much rejection, nah nah/No love injection, nah nah.” The nah nah’s are not so much words as they are sounds, a primitive kind of utterance that sounds like it forced itself out of his mouth, like he didn’t really intend to sing it but couldn’t quite help himself. When I hear it, something inside me moves. A solitary butterfly in my stomach flutters. When he sings, “Don’t tell me truth hurts, little girl/Cuz it hurts like hell,” I always felt like he was talking directly to me. I was a little girl when I started listening to this song, so I took it very literally that he meant me and was purposefully calling for me to pay attention. He got my attention, alright. When I got a little older and was suffering through teen angst, those two lines took on new meaning. I was comforted in feeling like he understood and was urging me to endure. Next he sings, “But down in the underground/You’ll find someone true.” Again, my prepubescent imagining of an underground was very literal. The word underground conjured in my imagination a dank and musty place, tree roots overhead, hordes of bugs and earthworms, the very last place a young girl would want to be, but I wanted to follow him there nonetheless. In the bridge of the song he sings, “It’s only forever/Not long at all,” and his voice is so velvety and persuasive that he makes it genuinely believable that forever would not be a long time. To this day I still believe him. How could forever seem like a long time in any setting if David Bowie were your constant companion? Forever wouldn’t be long enough. As the bridge continues with the lyrics, “Lost and lonely/That’s underground/Underground,” the music begins to amplify, the instruments and the chorus of background vocals intensify, escalating to a crescendo of Bowie growling, “Daddy, daddy get me out of here.” When he bellows out this line, there is a brief moment when all of the other sounds of the song drop out and all you can hear is the tenacity of his voice. It is in that instant that it feels like his voice is reaching out to me, grabbing me somewhere low in my gut, and pulling me towards him. And I cannot get enough.
Underground is my favorite Bowie song because it is the first Bowie song that ever hooked its claws into me, and it has kept me coming back to Bowie for more ever since.