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David Bowie - Hunky Dory Album Lyrics

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David Bowie - Hunky Dory Lyrics






Changes

I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste
was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware
of what they're going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace
I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you're gonna get
a little older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time

[ Correct these Lyrics ]

Writer: David Bowie
Copyright: Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, TINTORETTO MUSIC, BMG Rights Management
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Oh! You Pretty Things

Wake up you sleepy head
Put on some clothes,
shake up your bed
Put another log on the fire for me
I've made some breakfast and coffee
Look out my window and what do I see
A crack in the sky
and a hand reaching down to me
All the nightmares came today
And it looks as though they're
here to stay
What are we coming to
No room for me,
no fun for you
I think about a world to come
Where the books were found
by the Golden ones
Written in pain, written in awe
By a puzzled man who questioned
What we were here for
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though
they're here to stay

[CHORUS:]
Oh You Pretty Things
Don't you know you're driving your
Mamas and Papas insane
Oh You Pretty Things
Don't you know you're driving your
Mamas and Papas insane
Let me make it plain
([second time:] Let me say it again)
You gotta make way
for the Homo Superior

Look at your children
See their faces in golden rays
Don't kid yourself they belong to you
They're the start of a coming race
The earth is a bitch
We've finished our news
Homo Sapiens have outgrown their use
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay

[CHORUS]

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Writer: DAVID BOWIE
Copyright: Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, BMG Rights Management, TINTORETTO MUSIC
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Eight Line Poem

The tactful cactus by your window
Surveys the prairie of your room
The mobile spins to its collision
Clara puts her head between her paws
They've opened shops down West side
Will all the cacti find a home
But the key to the city
Is in the sun that pins
the branches to the sky
[ Correct these Lyrics ]

Writer: DAVID BOWIE
Copyright: Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, BMG Rights Management, TINTORETTO MUSIC
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Life On Mars?

It's a god-awful small affair
To the girl with the mousy hair
But her mummy is yelling "No"
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks
through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a saddening bore
For she's lived it
ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on

[CHORUS]
Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man!
Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?

It's on Amerika's tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse
has grown up a cow
Now the workers
have struck for fame
'Cause Lennon's on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibeza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
But the film is a saddening bore
'Cause I wrote it
ten times or more
It's about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on

[CHORUS]
Dring-dring-dring......
[Mind the phone]

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Writer: David Bowie
Copyright: Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, TINTORETTO MUSIC, BMG Rights Management
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Kooks

[CHORUS (x2)]
Will you stay in our Lovers' Story
If you stay you won't be sorry
'Cause we believe in you
Soon you'll grow so take a chance
With a couple of Kooks
Hung up on romancing

We bought a lot of things
to keep you warm and dry
And a funny old crib on which the paint won't dry
I bought you a pair of shoes
A trumpet you can blow
And a book of rules
On what to say to people
when they pick on you
'Cause if you stay with us you're gonna be pretty Kookie too

[CHORUS]

And if you ever have to go to school
Remember how they messed up
this old fool
Don't pick fights with the bullies
or the cads
'Cause I'm not much cop at punching other people's Dads
And if the homework brings you down
Then we'll throw it on the fire
And take the car downtown

[CHORUS (repeat ad inf.)]

[ Correct these Lyrics ]

Writer: David Bowie
Copyright: Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, TINTORETTO MUSIC, BMG Rights Management
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Quicksand

I'm closer to the Golden Dawn
Immersed in Crowley's uniform
Of imagery
I'm living in a silent film
Portraying
Himmler's sacred realm
Of dream reality
I'm frightened by the total goal
Drawing to the ragged hole
And I ain't got the power anymore
No I ain't got the power anymore

I'm the twisted name
on Garbo's eyes
Living proof of
Churchill's lies
I'm destiny
I'm torn between the light and dark
Where others see their targets
Divine symmetry
Should I kiss the viper's fang
Or herald loud
the death of Man
I'm sinking in the quicksand
of my thought
And I ain't got the power anymore

[CHORUS]
Don't believe in yourself
Don't deceive with belief
Knowledge comes
with death's release

I'm not a prophet
or a stone age man
Just a mortal
with the potential of a superman
I'm living on
I'm tethered to the logic
of Homo Sapien
Can't take my eyes
from the great salvation
Of bullshit faith
If I don't explain what you ought to know
You can tell me all about it
On, the next Bardo
I'm sinking in the quicksand
of my thought
And I ain't got the power anymore

[CHORUS]

[ Correct these Lyrics ]

Writer: DAVID BOWIE
Copyright: Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, TINTORETTO MUSIC, BMG Rights Management
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Fill Your Heart

Fill your heart with love today
Don't play the game of time
Things that happened in the past
Only happened in your Mind
Only in your Mind-Forget your Mind
And you'll be free-yea'
The writing's on the wall
Free-yea'. And you can know it all
If you choose. Just remember
Lovers never lose
'Cause they are Free of thoughts unpure [sic]
And of thoughts unkind
Gentleness clears the soul
Love cleans the mind
And makes it Free.

Happiness is happening
The dragons have been bled
Gentleness is everywhere
Fear's just in your Head
Only in your Head
Fear is in your Head
Only in your Head
So Forget your Head
And you'll be free
The writing's on the wall
Free-yea'. And you can know it all
If you choose. Just remember
Lovers never lose
'Cause they are free of thoughts unpure
And of thoughts unkind
Gentleness clears the soul
Love cleans the mind
And makes it Free!!

Free-yea'. Yeah-yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah [repeat]

[ Correct these Lyrics ]

Writer: BIFF ROSE, PAUL H. WILLIAMS
Copyright: Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
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Andy Warhol

Like to take a cement fix
Be a standing cinema
Dress my friends up
just for show
See them as they really are
Put a peephole in my brain
Two New Pence to have a go
I'd like to be a gallery
Put you all inside my show

[CHORUS]
Andy Warhol looks a scream
Hang him on my wall
Andy Warhol, Silver Screen
Can't tell them apart at all

Andy walking, Andy tired
Andy take a little snooze
Tie him up when he's fast asleep
Send him on a pleasant cruise
When he wakes up on the sea
Be sure to think of me and you
He'll think about paint
and he'll think about glue
What a jolly boring thing to do

[CHORUS]

[ Correct these Lyrics ]

Writer: DAVID BOWIE
Copyright: Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, TINTORETTO MUSIC, BMG Rights Management
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Song For Bob Dylan

Oh, hear this Robert Zimmerman
I wrote a song for you
About a strange young man
called Dylan
With a voice like sand and glue
His words of truthful vengeance
They could pin us to the floor
Brought a few more people on
And put the fear in a whole lot more

Ah, Here she comes
Here she comes
Here she comes again
The same old painted lady
From the brow of a superbrain
She'll scratch this world to pieces
As she comes on like a friend
But a couple of songs
From your old scrapbook
Could send her home again

You gave your heart to every bedsit room
At least a picture on my wall
And you sat behind a million pair of eyes
And told them how they saw
Then we lost your train of thought
The paintings are all your own
While troubles are rising
We'd rather be scared
Together than alone

Ah, Here she comes...[etc.]

Now hear this Robert Zimmerman
Though I don't suppose we'll meet
Ask your good friend Dylan
If he'd gaze a while
down the old street
Tell him we've lost his poems
So they're writing on the walls
Give us back our unity
Give us back our family
You're every nation's refugee
Don't leave us with their sanity

Ah, Here she comes....[etc.]

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Writer: DAVID BOWIE
Copyright: Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, TINTORETTO MUSIC, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
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Queen Bitch

Doo-pah-tum-ka-kum-bah-pah-ta-da-da

Ah yeah

Oh yeah

I'm up on the eleventh floor
And I'm watching the cruisers below
He's down on the street
And he's trying hard to pull sister Flo

Oh, my heart's in the basement
My weekend's at an alltime low
'Cause she's hoping to score
So I can't see her letting him go

Walk out of her heart
Walk out of her mind
Oh, not her

She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that
Oh, yeah

She's an old-time ambassador
Of sweet talking, night walking games
Oh and she's known in the darkest clubs
For pushing ahead of the dames
If she says she can do it
Then she can do it, she don't make false claims
But she's a queen and such a queen
Such a laughter is sucked in their brains

Now she's leading him on
And she'll lay him right down
Yes, she's leading him on
And she'll lay him right down
But it could have been me
Yes, it could have been me
Why didn't I say? Why didn't I say?
No, no, no

She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that

So I lay down a while
And I gaze at my hotel wall
Oh, the cot is so cold
It don't feel like no bed at all

Yeah, I lay down a while
And look at my hotel wall
And he's down on the street
So I throw both his bags down the hall
And I'm phoning a cab
'Cause my stomach feels small
There's a taste in my mouth
And it's no taste at all
It could have been me
Oh yeah, it could have been me
Why didn't I say? Why didn't I say?
No, no, no

She's so swishy in her satin and tat
In her frock coat and bipperty-bopperty hat
Oh God, I could do better than that
Oh you betcha
Oh yeah
Uh-huh
Mmm
[ Correct these Lyrics ]

Writer: David Bowie
Copyright: Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Downtown Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
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The Bewlay Brothers

And so the story goes
they wore the clothes
They said the things
to make it seem improbable
The whale of a lie
like they hope it was
And the Goodmen of Tomorrow
Had their feet in the wallow
And their heads of Brawn
were nicer shorn
And how they bought their positions with saccharin and trust
And the world was asleep
to our latent fuss
Sighing, the swirl through the streets
Like the crust of the sun
The Bewlay Brothers
In our Wings that Bark
Flashing teeth of Brass
Standing tall in the dark
Oh, And we were Gone
Hanging out with your Dwarf Men
We were so turned on
By your lack of conclusions

I was Stone and he was Wax
So he could scream,
and still relax, unbelievable
And we frightened the small children away
And our talk was old
and dust would flow
Thru our veins and Lo!
it was midnight
Back o' the kitchen door
Like the grim face
on the Cathedral floor
And the solid book we wrote
Cannot be found today

And it was Stalking time
for the Moonboys
The Bewlay Brothers
With our backs on the arch
In the Devil-may-be-here
But He can't sing about that
Oh, And we were Gone
Real Cool Traders
We were so Turned On
You thought we were Fakers

Now the dress is hung,
the ticket pawned
The Factor Max that proved the fact
Is melted down
And woven on the edging of my pillow
Now my Brother lays upon the Rocks
He could be dead, He could be not
He could be You
He's Camelian, Comedian, Corinthian and Caricature
"Shooting-up Pie-in-the-Sky"
The Bewlay Brothers
In the feeble and the Bad
The Bewlay Brothers
In the Blessed and Cold
In the Crutch-hungry Dark
Was where we flayed our Mark
Oh, and we were Gone
Kings of Oblivion
We were so Turned On
In the Mind-Warp Pavilion

Lay me place and bake me Pie
I'm starving for me Gravy
Leave my shoes, and door unlocked
I might just slip away
Just for the Day, Hey!
Please come Away, Hey! [repeat ad inf.]

[ Correct these Lyrics ]

Writer: DAVID BOWIE
Copyright: Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, BMG Rights Management, TINTORETTO MUSIC
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Back to: David Bowie


Hunky Dory is the fourth studio album by the English musician David Bowie, released in the United Kingdom on 17 December 1971 through RCA Records. Following a break from touring and recording, Bowie settled down to write new songs, composing on piano rather than guitar as in earlier works. Bowie assembled the guitarist Mick Ronson, the bassist Trevor Bolder, and the drummer Mick Woodmansey, and began to record a new album in mid-1971 at Trident Studios in London. Rick Wakeman contributed on piano shortly before joining Yes. Bowie co-produced the album with Ken Scott, who had engineered Bowie's previous two records.

Compared to the guitar-driven hard rock sound of The Man Who Sold the World, Bowie opted for a warmer, more melodic piano-based pop rock and art pop style on Hunky Dory. His lyrical concerns on the record range from the compulsive nature of artistic reinvention on "Changes", to occultism and Nietzschean philosophy on "Oh! You Pretty Things" and "Quicksand"; several songs make cultural and literary references. He was also inspired by his United States tour to write songs dedicated to three American icons: Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, and Lou Reed. The song "Kooks" was dedicated to Bowie's newborn son Duncan. The album's cover artwork, photographed in monochrome and subsequently recoloured, features Bowie in a pose inspired by actresses of the Hollywood Golden Age.

RCA offered little promotion for Hunky Dory and its lead single "Changes", wary that Bowie would transform his image shortly. Thus, despite very positive reviews from the British and American music press, the album initially sold poorly and failed to chart. After the commercial breakthrough of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust album in 1972, Hunky Dory garnered renewed interest, with sales peaking at number three on the UK Albums Chart. Retrospectively, Hunky Dory has been critically acclaimed as one of Bowie's best works, and features on several lists of the greatest albums of all time. Within the context of his career, Hunky Dory is considered the album where "Bowie starts to become Bowie", definitively discovering his voice and style.
Genre(s): Art pop, pop rock
Producer(s): Ken Scott, David Bowie
Length: 41:50
Released: December 17th, 1971
Year: 1971

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