"I was in love once, maybe, and it was an awful experience. It rotted me, drained me, and it was a disease. Hateful thing, it was." - David Bowie, interviewed by Cameron Crowe in 'Playboy', September 1976. So begins Chris O'Leary's entry in his "Pushing Ahead of the Dame" blog devoted to all things Bowie, and we can only assume, at that time, that David was referring to the mother of his first child, Angela Barnett-Bowie.
He continues: "'Soul Love', so sweet on its surface, so often interpreted as a picture of 'youthful romance' (as per '1001 Greatest Albums') or as a message of universal peace and brotherhood, is rather clinical at heart. Love, whether that of a mother, lover or priest, is shown as being amoral, delusive, pointless and ruinous. (Love is 'sweeping over cross and baby', as if it was a plague or an infestation.)
"The song opens with a mother at her son's tombstone (the son likely killed in a war, having died 'to save the slogan'), with 'stone love' suggesting both a resolute, enduring love and a lifeless emotion. The priest kneels at the altar in bliss and in blindness. The teenagers, who are so besotted they believe they’re the first to ever fall in love, are just the puppets of instinct ('idiot love will spark the fusion').
"Blessed with a fine melody and layered with harmonies and, after the second verse, Bowie's alto saxophone, the track gets unsettled by odd time signatures in the verse - it's either in 7/4 time or it moves to 2/4 time on every fourth bar (the sheet music says the latter) - while Bowie again pairs major and minor chords (G to E minor and B minor, the same as in 'Ziggy Stardust').
"The track begins with Woody Woodmansey's drum pattern (a contrast to the slower, ominous beat of 'Five Years', sequenced before it), supplemented by bongos and shakers, then by Bowie's acoustic guitar strumming and Trevor Bolder's five-note bassline. Bowie's vocal parallels the arrangement in part, starting as just a sung whole note ('stone'), then two quarter notes in the next bar, then six notes in the third, etc. Mick Ronson keeps to the background until the chorus.
"He and Bowie each take a solo verse: Bowie gives a passable alto sax solo, Ronson mainly keeps to the vocal melody. Recorded 12 November 1971. Played in a few 1973 shows, a fixture of the 1978 tour, a rarity of the 1983 'Serious Moonlight' tour. It was the B-side to a re-issue of 'All the Madmen', and the Stage version was released as a single in Japan. Mick Ronson's 1975 country-ska remake, retitled 'Stone Love', was later included on reissues of 'Play Don't Worry'."
I don't know where i'd be without the love that "is not love"...literally. I've been blown this way and that, all across the country, by different variations of it, since my early twenties, which makes me, I suppose, a romantic, or a fool...either way, I'm happy now.
@turnerjamese The third option. Just a normal human being, going through the life process. You love some, you hate some, you win love, you lose love. That's how it goes.
12 Comments (since 7 Nov 2014)
leejohnson
"I was in love once, maybe, and it was an awful experience. It rotted me, drained me, and it was a disease. Hateful thing, it was." - David Bowie, interviewed by Cameron Crowe in 'Playboy', September 1976. So begins Chris O'Leary's entry in his "Pushing Ahead of the Dame" blog devoted to all things Bowie, and we can only assume, at that time, that David was referring to the mother of his first child, Angela Barnett-Bowie.
leejohnson
He continues: "'Soul Love', so sweet on its surface, so often interpreted as a picture of 'youthful romance' (as per '1001 Greatest Albums') or as a message of universal peace and brotherhood, is rather clinical at heart. Love, whether that of a mother, lover or priest, is shown as being amoral, delusive, pointless and ruinous. (Love is 'sweeping over cross and baby', as if it was a plague or an infestation.)
leejohnson
"The song opens with a mother at her son's tombstone (the son likely killed in a war, having died 'to save the slogan'), with 'stone love' suggesting both a resolute, enduring love and a lifeless emotion. The priest kneels at the altar in bliss and in blindness. The teenagers, who are so besotted they believe they’re the first to ever fall in love, are just the puppets of instinct ('idiot love will spark the fusion').
leejohnson
"Blessed with a fine melody and layered with harmonies and, after the second verse, Bowie's alto saxophone, the track gets unsettled by odd time signatures in the verse - it's either in 7/4 time or it moves to 2/4 time on every fourth bar (the sheet music says the latter) - while Bowie again pairs major and minor chords (G to E minor and B minor, the same as in 'Ziggy Stardust').
leejohnson
"The track begins with Woody Woodmansey's drum pattern (a contrast to the slower, ominous beat of 'Five Years', sequenced before it), supplemented by bongos and shakers, then by Bowie's acoustic guitar strumming and Trevor Bolder's five-note bassline. Bowie's vocal parallels the arrangement in part, starting as just a sung whole note ('stone'), then two quarter notes in the next bar, then six notes in the third, etc. Mick Ronson keeps to the background until the chorus.
leejohnson
"He and Bowie each take a solo verse: Bowie gives a passable alto sax solo, Ronson mainly keeps to the vocal melody. Recorded 12 November 1971. Played in a few 1973 shows, a fixture of the 1978 tour, a rarity of the 1983 'Serious Moonlight' tour. It was the B-side to a re-issue of 'All the Madmen', and the Stage version was released as a single in Japan. Mick Ronson's 1975 country-ska remake, retitled 'Stone Love', was later included on reissues of 'Play Don't Worry'."
leejohnson
Taken from "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars", Bowie's breakthrough 1972 concept album, which hit No. 5 in the UK album charts, and made it to No. 75 in the US version the following year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Ziggy_Stardust_and_the_Spiders_from_Mars
jackietheripper
heh
turnerjamese
I don't know where i'd be without the love that "is not love"...literally. I've been blown this way and that, all across the country, by different variations of it, since my early twenties, which makes me, I suppose, a romantic, or a fool...either way, I'm happy now.
kompani101
In my opinion one of Bowie's finest songs.
leejohnson
@turnerjamese The third option. Just a normal human being, going through the life process. You love some, you hate some, you win love, you lose love. That's how it goes.
lynn200
the life...a great write up by the way. :)