Emerging from the enigmatic world of Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie had left his fans with sky-high expectations and a growing hunger for the show-stopping performances of a new era.
Bowie entered the 70s known as the androgynous extraterrestrial character Ziggy Stardust. While the character helped to push Bowie into the limelight of rock and roll, this persona was nothing short of taxing for the artist. As sung in the hit song, “Ziggy Stardust,” Bowie felt the character had “sucked up into his mind.”
Before Bowie’s star burnt out, it was time to bring him down to Earth, specifically, to America. Aladdin Sane— a play on words to insinuate “A lad insane”– is often looked at as the terrestrial and Americanized version of Ziggy Stardust.
Bowie’s inspiration for Aladdin Sane was quite different from the origins of Ziggy Stardust. While Ziggy was a melting pot of Bowie’s biggest musical inspirations, Aladdin Sane was a compilation of the myriad emotions and perspectives gained by Bowie throughout his time on tour as Ziggy, predominantly in America.
Aladdin Sane is a version of Bowie that has been exposed to the materialistic and superficial nature of American consumerism. There is a level of diminished naivety and idle acceptance that is present in Aladdin Sane, displaying a sharp contrast to the relentlessly positive and “save the world” mentality enhanced throughout the Ziggy Stardust album in songs such as “Stardust” and “Soul Love.”
Elements of this shift in attitude is are prominent in many of the lyrics on the Aladdin Sane record.
In Bowie’s “Time,” he talks about inevitable death that comes with the passing of time. (The sniper in the brain, regurgitating drain/ Incestuous and vain/ And many other last names/ Oh well I look at my watch it say/ 9:25 and I think? “Oh God I’m still alive”/ We should be on by now/ We should be on by now), along with how his views on love have shifted to a dark and painful human necessity (Breaking up is hard/ But keeping dark is hateful/I had so many dreams/I had so many breakthroughs/ But you, my love, were kind/ But love has left you dreamless/ The door to dreams was closed).
The birth of the character also sprouted from the 1930 novel Vile Bodies, written by Evelyn Waugh. Vile Bodies is a futuristic novel that discusses the negative effects of mass-consumerism and materialism of the 1920s. Waugh mainly highlights The Bright Young Things, a group of London aristocrats and socialites known for throwing extravagant parties. It is often viewed as a time of carelessness between the two World Wars.
Bowie read Waugh’s novel while returning to London from his first successful American tour. He felt as though the book highlighted a lifestyle that would eventually lead to the downfall of humanity due to a focus on frivolous things that could only be credited for momentary satisfaction. Bowie recognized pieces of his own lifestyle, and he felt as though this subculture of Bright Young Things was a prominent character trait of the United States of America.
Influences of the book can be found woven into the lyrics on the record. In the title track, Bowie puts the Aladdin Sane character into a pipeline of dying extravagant parties leading into war:
Watching him dash away, swinging an old bouquet (dead roses)Sake and strange divine Uh-h-h-uh-h-uh you’ll make itPassionate bright young things, takes him away to war (don’t fake it)Sadden glissando stringsUh-h-h-uh-h-uh, you’ll make it
In the biography Strange Fascination: David Bowie : The Definitive Story, written by David Buckley, Aladdin Sane is described as being “a schizoid amalgamation” that was reflected in the music, and the record is just that.
While some view Aladdin Sane as nothing more than a derivative version of Ziggy Stardust, the character is vastly different in the sense that Ziggy Stardust was a defined character with a story line and accompanying songs. In contrast, Aladdin Sane is a figure that is explored and expressed through a stark sound shift and lyricism that is notably different from the character’s predecessor.
