Thanks to Jim’s very helpful habit of giving us up to a month’s notice of future themes for Song Lyric Sunday, when I was mulling over what to select for last week’s Brit Album of the Year challenge, I was able to see that one of my strongest possibilities – David Bowie, with the (posthumously released) ‘Blackstar’ – would effectively rule him out of contention for this week’s theme, the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution To Music, which he was awarded in 1996.
Of course, there’s a massive catalogue to choose from, but I’ve gone for one of the standout tracks on the ‘Hunky Dory’ album (one of my personal favourites), which was released in late 1971.
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
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
You gotta make way
For the homo superior
Look out at your children
See their faces in golden rays
Don’t kid yourself they belong to you
They’re the start of the 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
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
Gotta make way
For the homo superior
Written by David Bowie
The accompanying video is from Bowie’s appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972. I thought that this was appropriate, as next week’s SLS is about artistes who appeared on that iconic BBC2 music show. Apparently I suggested this topic to Jim, albeit in a throwaway line in a post much earlier this year (you can’t say Jim doesn’t plan ahead).
Anyway, I’ll be happy to oblige and, just to get my oar in first, I’ll be writing about Dr John Cooper Clarke and, in particular ‘Beasley Street’. I suspect that hasn’t pre-empted anybody.
the only deadhead in the hameau 
Great choice for the theme. One of my favourite Bowie albums too.
And thank you for pre-empting a possibility for next week – who was he?
Bowie wrote some lovely lyrics for this song, and I read that he was thinking about a new race of superior humans taking over Earth when he wrote the line. “Gotta make way for the homo superior.”
The Old Grey Whistle Stop as my uncle would call it 🙂 I remember ‘whispering’ Bob Harris being the best host in my opinion. Great choice
Simply so great and what a guy he was 💜💜💜
I remember always mixing David Bowie and Sting up when I was younger. He’s had some great songs!