Slang Editorial :: Never Underestimate The Value Of A Holla'

Sunday, November 30, 2008
Terrorists Have Been Waiting for Me (But I Was Not There to Greet Them)

I was just in India, but am back in America, alive and unharmed not a day too late. A massive photo re-cap, including all of the above and below, from my trip is available here at my Flickr page.

Yes yes, it was an amazing and crazy trip.

Re-appraisal

Recently I have pulled David Bowie's 2002 album Heathen off the shelf and have given it some legitimate listens for the first time since it came out 6+ years ago. Upon listening in 2002, I recognized that I definitely seemed to be a "decent and respectable" album, but also one that added little to the canon of Bowie or merited much more of a listen. However, in revisting more carefully again now, I feel like i have to go back on that original opinion to state that it really is a strong album that somehow manages to say more about David Bowie than any of his other albums from '92 on, all of which were themed (usually musically) in a way so as to suggest an inherent statement.... but simplicity for once wins with Bowie on Heathen.

At the time, much was made of Bowie's choice to include three covers on Heathen: a random track by the Legendary Stardust Cowboy (Ziggy's alleged namesake), the Pixies' "Cactus" and Neil Young's "I've Been Waiting for You". The latter two choices are interesting to me because they draw an isoceles triangle of sorts in my brain between the three artists, as the Pixies also covered both "I've Been Waiting For You" and "Winterlong" by Young to use as album b-sides. All three of these covers are quite good and in fact the "Cactus" cover is the only song from Heathen that i have listened to since those first listens back in 2002 (it has popped up on either mixes i've made or received). As I go back, however, "Cactus" is now the song on the album i'm least interested in hearing, and beyond the many great originals on the album, I've settled in quite well with the Young cover.

I hope to write more about Heathen at large, but here now are four versions of this song, including Neil's original, both Bowie and Pixies versions, as well as a live version by Dinosaur Jr. (far inferior to the other three but I felt like filling it out):

"I've Been Waiting for You"--four versions

cheers,

Labels: case studies, mp3

posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 11/30/2008 10:25:00 PM 0 comments

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