This post is part of a countdown series on songs that have stuck in my head and are part of my iTunes "hit parade" of most-played tracks. See all the posts here.
Bowie's "Sound and Vision" is one of the songs that fuel my limited exercise routines, which mostly consist of stopping to do some high kicks while I'm getting dressed in the morning. (There's also violent head bobbing when I take a musical break on my computer; I'm hoping this at least saves me from a neck wattle after every other part of my body starts to sag.)
It sounds like what might happen had Steely Dan been forced to do a disco song: jazzy and druggy but with a great hook. Not much to the lyrics, even by the standards of songs reportedly written while stoned (or coked-up):
Blue, blue, electric blue
That's the colour of my room
Where I will live
Blue, blue
Pale blinds drawn all day
Nothing to do, nothing to say
Blue, blue
The fun part of the song is that those teen-angsty lyrics are joined to one of the more exuberant melodies of the '70s. It's almost as though Bowie is making fun of himself for having thought of "pale blinds drawn all day" before his friends dragged him into the sunlight. I'm sure the song has been in the background for many scenes of middle-of-the-night decadence, but I associate with the the part of the day when nothing has gone wrong yet. (And don't worry, there are plenty of really depressing songs higher on my playlist.)
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