I have been a mega Bowie fan since 1969. This is the song that made me a lifelong fan, long before he released Ziggy on the world and then morphed into all the other versions of himself.
Magnificent song! LOVE LOVE LOVE BOWIE!!!!! No one like him, Love seeing you young guys discussing the genius that was Bowie! Been my #1 love since I was 13. I am now 60!
Thank you so much for doing this reaction, homies. This is a big song that usually gets overshadowed by the album's title track. Originally, Cygnet Committee started as a different song called Lover to the Dawn. David had started a community art program, but rather than participating in collaborations and creating a strong expressive environment, people showed up to hear David play and sing songs. It was frustrating to him. He adapted it into a commentary on the hippy movement. Chris caught on really quickly to the 3 different perspectives; the different people participating in the movement. The first perspective seems to be of passive people who know the world needs change but only wish the best of luck for those creating it, because they find activism tiring and can't keep up with it. They are hippies that know only peace and love and do the minimum to get people aware of what change needs to be made. These sparrows are hippies in the morning and sleeping at night. The dark, foreboding tone shift brings in the 2nd perspective, which is that of the government. The government makes so many shifts to appease these hippies, but feels that they're asking for too much and that they're a drain on society. Elected officials view them as obstructive. The 3rd perspective is of the rebellious hippies that don't want to just sit and watch anymore as other people dictate what they're allowed to do in life. These militant hippies aren't necessarily the model for peace, but they want to achieve it through fighting against everyone who will oppress them. A cygnet is a young swan, and while swans are generally symbolic of peace and tranquility, when provoked into action, they can also be very hostile, and in a flock they can be extremely dangerous. The sparrows have the swans forming groups on their behalf to become something bigger and stop the thinkers and talking men from dominating their livelihoods. All the way back in 1969, before Ziggy Stardust or The Thin White Duke, David definitely had everything he needed to as a songwriter. He could grab you with his lyrics and his voice and the atmosphere he could create. He also had shorter songs on this album that could give you quick folk pop sensibility like Letter to Hermione and Janine, but these big sprawling progressive folk songs made massive statements that people would appreciate more as they broke the surface and looked for complex meaning in songs. It's fun to go back and hear songs like this knowing what David sounded like later. There was more wisdom and more flair, but this era had so much intelligence and he wasn't confined by being a celebrity to watch what he was saying or to stay away from people to avoid being recognized. He could observe the world and make statements on all the nuances he was passionate about. Now that you've heard this era, the glam rock era is probably at the top of most peoples' lists. Starman will definitely be a good introduction for Ray. It's from 1972's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, 3 albums later. The live version on Top of the Pops was most people's first exposure to Ziggy Stardust. I still want my next request to be Lady Grinning Soul from the follow-up album Aladdin Sane, and I want to throw in the bridge between David's glam rock era and his soul era, Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise) from his 1974 album Diamond Dogs. The vocals and instrumentation on those songs are extreme highs, in my opinion. I wish I could request a song from every 70s album, because The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, and Station to Station are also legendary and The Berlin Trilogy is considered David's most influential group of albums, but with Starman and Loving the Alien and reactions to other artists, you'll definitely be pretty busy. Good luck, fam.
I almost believe the sincerity you convey about this song. I dont want to make any assumpions or opinions on something i watched for the first time. I am glad someone who doesnt make a living pretending to be intelligent enough to explain Bowie. The contrast you used, lets Dance... Have you listened to the lyrics. You guys should research your opinons a little more. Im sure Bowie has
He was 22 years old when he composed this song, which I consider a masterpiece, due to the depth of its lyrics. David questioned everything and took us with him in each of his questions!
If you maybe want something more sinister and dissonant by Bowie try Sweet Thing/Candidate/Reprise from 1974, shortly after his Ziggy Stardust era. It's a long drugged dystopian song about human interaction, love and some weird concepts in a post apocalypse. Also his voice is absolutely haunting on that one and the production ist totally unique.
Thank you! I was born in 71'.....it took me a minute to appreciate this tune and when I did....GLORIOUS! ITS SO GOOD....'They drained my very soul DRY'....
"memory of a free festival" is wonderful off this album. You guys are great! I love your seriousness and patience. Do a dive into "Scary Monsters" full album on here or on your own sometime. Bowie is chok full of prophesies and insights, he's a futurist.
My first encounter with Bowie's music was when I got the Ziggy Stardust album when I was a teenager in high school and Bowie's music became very much a part of my teenage years. It brings back great memories . Later when Cygnet Commitee came out I could not stop listening to it, and now here we are having young guys listening to it, it's so awesome to see.
Good work guys. This is a monumental song, straight from the heart of David Bowie. Too long to ever be played on the radio at the time, and so you only knew about it if you had to have the album. There was so much going on in the world in those days and David was there to tell us about it. I still get goosebumps listening to this song.
It is about the failure of the Hippie dreams and how it all just became a series of slogans.Revolutions start out with high ideals but end up with ' a child lad slain on the ground ' It Always turns to violence even turning on their own kind.As Pete Townshend said in The Who's song "Won't get fooled again " = " Meet the new Boss , same as the old Boss ". One of my favourite Bowie songs very powerful and full of emotion.
You might be interested in the comment I put on here of what David Bowie said about this song in a rare 1971 newspaper article. Can’t be bothered to rewrite it here , it’s too long but you will find the comment below this video somewhere x
What a great track! I've always found the lyrics to be so beautiful,it is said to be from several points of view. I love the deeper cuts of Bowie, like this one, more than the super popular ones. Conversation Piece is and will always be one of my fav Bowie's songs, I believe it's on a remaster. Glad you dove deeper. I love Bowie's ability to write w/ ambiguity, he was a master of lyrics and a damn bright human. Thanks again guys,are ya'll going to have a patreon?
@@ExpertDummies Bowie's God, so love more of him,but post punk,psych,glam,brit pop( kinda hate the brit pop term,but it's descriptive) I really like you guys! Thanks for replying you'll have a supporter!
I have always loved this song, it was amazing to see young people really paying attention to it. Watching your faces during it was a great reason to subscribe.
Top five best Bowie songs for me, so glad you guys reviewed it. Like all Bowie songs, it gets better every time you hear it (this song-even more intense). I’d love to hear your review of any song from the greatest album ever recorded, R+F of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
David Bowie in a rare article in changes music paper 23 March 1971 when asked about this song: “wow, why did you pick on that one? That’s crazy, nobody picks that one, they get hung up on Memory of a free festival, space oddity and that’s it- maybe Janine, but this is remarkable. I basically wanted it to be a cry to fucking humanity. The beginning of the song when I first started it was saying- fellow man, I do love you-I love humanity. I adore it, it’s sensational, sensuous, exciting- it sparkled and it’s also pathetic at the same time. And it was a cry to listen. OK, that was the first section. And then I tried to get into the dialogue between two kinds of forces. First the sponsor of the revolution, the Quasi-capitalist who believes that he is left wing and puts support into a lot of the projects and gets no thanks for it. The other character was pure what...” (the next section was too blurry to read but it was something like “ended up being what I anticipated that particular movement for ---? and free ---? over in England, take people like --- ???, ----?.?” Later on in the interview he said “...any form of revolutionary left, whatever you want to call it, was Jack Kerouac, E.E. Cummings and Ginsburg period. Excuse me but that was where it was at. The hippies, I’m afraid don’t know what’s happening. I don’t think their are any anyway. The underground really went underground. Grand funk and all these people man, are the moderate choice of music. Underground is Yoko Ono, The Black Poets....these people scare the hell out of most freaks. They laugh at Yoko but it’s the whole cliche...” There was more, including talking about John Lennon, it was a long article.
Subscribed, not just for the fact that it's one of my idols masterpieces...but when I was your age I could not listen to anything but Bowie.....that's my fault I missed some good stuff, but caught up...this is an intense song to listen to unless your really into the great man, so absolutely well done on this one....it has soooo many layers....I cry at the end....when he sees a child lay slain on the ground.......just shows somethings never change....the song to me is very hippy age.....very of the moment yet ages perfectly......thanQ.
Fantastic song. Like you I’m a lifelong Bowie fan so hope you don’t mind me pointing you to these songs: Supermodel Amour ua-cam.com/video/b1ztgqdHsjc/v-deo.html Long Way To Go ua-cam.com/video/HvgQouVo-sc/v-deo.html
Also the whole musical content as a musician stands alone. i could go on forever, but when it was released. this song and only this song changed my life. it has the ability to change you here now in the moment. No other song does this.
1st album; he wrote, arranged, produced and played most of the incumbents and was just a baby in the late 60s . this song crazy concept, crazy lyrics...insanely long about using a powerful man to break the back of the global overlords then usurping that man and as the hero of the uprising wondering if , in the absence of love, wasn't just a different brutality. anyway, you guys are awesome!
Hey, you guys just straight in the deep end there. One of my favourites. Something no one else is doing but this guy is VERY good, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.
The story behind this song is well-documented - basically the song is about his disillusionment with the fracturing hippie movement (prompted in part by events surrounding the Growth Festival, which is ostensibly-but-possibly-not the subject of another song on the same album)
As a few others have mentioned, it would be great if you could react to Sweet thing/ Candidate/ Sweet thing reprise from David’s album Diamond Dogs. David Bowie produced that album and as well as lead and background vocals, played guitars, saxophones, mood synthesiser and mellotron on that album, in fact he played everything except keyboards, bass guitar and drums. Thankyou so much xxx
Lately due to russia invading Ukraine, I think of this as a song that radiates hope, "I want to believe, there's a light shining through somehow" that there's always HOPE. I hope the war stops. I hope ALL war stops. This song of Bowie's is indeed a classic. try listening to Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud.
"Cygnet Committee": recorded summer of '69. Released mid-Nov '69. You're to be commended (as others are saying below) for daring to tackle little-heard early Bowie. Personally never cared much for "CC," but seeing as how you're digging around at his recorded product from the turn of that decade, may we have the pleasure of your reactions to "An Occasional Dream," and/or "The Wild-Eyed Boy From Free Cloud"? They're back-to-back on the flip side of this same album, if you're disposed at all to do 2 songs on one reaction. "Memory of a Free Festival" on the same side as those two is a good 'un, too! Many thanks again, lads, for going where few new clear reactors dare to go!!
This was Bowie's opus. It's one of his five best. It's not a song. It could be on a papyrus scroll. Do We are the Dead, Candidate, Bewley brothers, and Wild Eyed Boy just for starters to get Bowie.
Fantastic song. Like you I’m a lifelong Bowie fan so hope you don’t mind me pointing you to these songs: Supermodel Amour ua-cam.com/video/b1ztgqdHsjc/v-deo.html Long Way To Go ua-cam.com/video/HvgQouVo-sc/v-deo.html
Bringing this song back to the times it was written, in the very late 60's, the message is: what would you do in the name of love and freedom? How far would you go?
This song is dealing with the disillusionment of the failed dreams of the hippies' peace and love movement. The revolution fizzled, and life went on as before.
I have been listening to this song for all of my life. (50 years)I have probably listened to it a thousand times. To me this is about Jesus. He is the man talking first. Then the second part are the people who sell him out and crucify him. Amazing that you did this song. One of the best songs in the history of music. Thank you. This song is like religion to me as is the entire album. God bless.
Fantastic song. Like you I’m a lifelong Bowie fan so hope you don’t mind me pointing you to these songs: Supermodel Amour ua-cam.com/video/b1ztgqdHsjc/v-deo.html Long Way To Go ua-cam.com/video/HvgQouVo-sc/v-deo.html
I think that Bowie was coming out of a bad breakup with Aleister Crowley's Ordo Temple Orientis ( whose motto is that of the Thelemites of Rabelais " Do What Thou Wilt. Love is the Law. Love under Will.") . And also if one listens to the whole album you will hear a song called Memory of a Free Festival, which shows all the innocent experimentation and open handed acceptance of the Summer of Love and it's message of 'Tune in, Turn On, Drop Out'. That youthful naïveté is followed by the Cygnet Committee that seems to hint at the reasons that the dream of the sixties fell apart. Politics and the manipulation of one's fellow man. In the end even going to war which was what the revolution was all against! So the Sixties soured as they entered into the more jaded '70s. Here we are still extruding ourselves from that dream of innocence as we have entered the age of Gangstah Rap. Where caring for your fellow man is last on the list of virtues. I hope I made myself understandable?
Yay - you got more than one view. Tremendous to see you both so earnestly engaging with the song. Cat People and Let’s Dance will never make it on my favourite DB songs.
I've heard this phase of Bowie described as Bob Dylan on acid. Dylan was brilliant, but give me beautiful, enigmatic Bowie over Dylan any day of the week.
First off, I'm glad younger people are listening to his older music. In general they have the right idea about the song, but in a practical sense they miss the point. This song couldn't be more relevant today. We are being spoon fed what to think, and the machine's objective is to take advantage of its people. Bowie's vision could certainly come to pass, and it has in part already happened. Bowie isn't the creator of this concept. It's borrowed from others before in science fiction. Young people shouldn't just listen to Bowie like it's a good song, bad song, and be off with something else. They need to fight against the mind meld they're part of. Believe it in their gut, and think nothing else. That's what Bowie wanted back in 69. This song isn't a song at all. It's a form of a Bible against manipulative control.
Fantastic song. Like you I’m a lifelong Bowie fan so hope you don’t mind me pointing you to these songs: Supermodel Amour ua-cam.com/video/b1ztgqdHsjc/v-deo.html Long Way To Go ua-cam.com/video/HvgQouVo-sc/v-deo.html
I do not believe the use of the word "catholic" is in the religious but catholic can also mean universal and that is the way I take it in this song ( slit the universal throat). I also think that although this was early in his career the song shows his great voice.
It’s kind of at the time, gay men, especially, were not accepted, so, I think he was at the vanguard of breaking walls down culturally and torn between his own relevance. Kudos for tackling a very deep subject.
My interpretation over the last 40 years has always been this is the struggle God was having with himself during the final moments before initiating the great apocalypse.
Lover To the Dawn. Cygnet Committee. Cygnet Committee (BBC, 1970). People, especially young people, more and more find themselves in the iron grip of authoritarian institutions. Reaction against the pigs or teachers in the schools, welfare pigs or the army, is generalizable and extends beyond the particular repressive institution to the society and the State as a whole. The legitimacy of the State is called into question for the first time in at least 30 years, and the anti-authoritarianism which characterizes the youth rebellion turns into rejection of the State, a refusal to be socialized into American society. Kids used to try to beat the system from inside the army or from inside the schools; now they desert from the army and burn down the schools. First manifesto of what would become Weatherman, published in New Left Notes, 18 June 1969. This country is crying out for a leader. God knows what it is looking for, but if it’s not careful it’s going to end up with a Hitler. David Bowie, interview with Music Now!, 20 December 1969. And we can force you to be free And we can force you to believe “Cygnet Committee.” “Cygnet Committee” begins as David Bowie’s break-up letter to the Arts Lab, a communal arts venture he had co-founded that was run out of the back room of a Beckenham pub, and over its near-ten-minute span the song becomes a bile-filled, self-righteous attack aimed at the counterculture itself. So something whose roots are in petty, specific gripes (Bowie had hoped the Arts Lab (which featured everything from tie-dying lessons to free-form jazz performances) would be a free-flowing exchange of ideas, and found it was mainly a bunch of grubby, needy kids trying to latch onto the slightly-more-famous types like Bowie-“I opened doors that would have blocked their way…I ravaged my finance just for those”) blossoms into a jeremiad against the New Left, cult figures, false hippie capitalists, deluded kids and their various empty slogans (including “kick out the jams” and “love is all we need”): it’s an unrelenting damning of a movement that Bowie was barely part of. Two centuries before, England had avoided the revolutions that overtook America and France, and by 1969-1971 it seemed like the pattern was repeating-where French students had rioted in Paris and nearly caused DeGaulle’s government to collapse, and radical American students were bombing the Capitol and the Pentagon, the UK had remained relatively quiet (“London was the vacuum of late 1960s rebellion,” Peter Doggett). So “Cygnet Committee”‘s sustained burst of rage and elaborate paranoia seems unearned. After all, what did the guy who wrote “Laughing Gnome” or “Space Oddity” really have to say about the Revolution? Bowie wasn’t the only one to sense a blackness at the heart of the counterculture-Pete Townshend had just written a rock opera about false messiahs, pop cultism and the rise of mob philosophy (or just listen to the way Merry Clayton’s voice cracks when she sings “Rape! Murder!” in “Gimme Shelter”). For Bowie, “Cygnet Committee” is the portal through which he would descend into his ’70s obsessions-supermen, glam violence, glam fascism, cults of personalities and various dystopias-and some of those figures appear in shadowy form here, slitting throats, killing children, betraying friends. Although Bowie ends the song with a plea for love and freedom, you’re left mainly with the phrase “I want to live,” the simplest, humblest request that a human being can make. The song seems like a patchwork of three or four different pieces sewn together (it has at least one recognizable ancestor: the second/fifth verses and the start of the third/sixth are reused from a Bowie composition called “Lover to the Dawn” which he had demoed with John Hutchinson earlier in 1969). Two fairly concise four-line verses (sung over acoustic guitar, a fluid bassline and legato electric guitar) are followed by a 13-line, 48-bar rambling monster of a verse, which begins with a basic 4/4 rock accompaniment and then slackens into looser, almost free-form lines. The pattern repeats and this time the rambling verse (call it the radical faction) now conquers the song, extending for over five minutes until the fadeout. There is a coherence to it all, as the three verses are in step-up pattern (they begin in D, Eb and F, respectively, with the “rant” section of the third verse, for lack of a better word, starting in A Minor). The final exhortation (“I want to believe!”) is delivered over twining guitar and keyboard lines. “Cygnet Committee” can be wearying to listen all the way through (at least I find), as the players either won’t or can’t rock when the song cries out for it-if you’re quoting the MC5, you ought to be laying down some heavy fire. Bowie’s vocal, in which he seems to be bleeding and purging himself so as to be ready for the years to come, carries much of the track. Several writers have called this Bowie’s “first masterpiece,” which seems an overreach, though Bowie certainly was clawing here after something grander and more resonant than most of his earlier works. For an artist often accused of being cold and calculating, it’s a messy, wildly human performance. Recorded ca. August-September 1969, on Space Oddity.
Great lyrics by a great songwriter. This song is every political movement that started good and went bad. Another one along the same lines. ua-cam.com/video/Q3EbAxdn0FY/v-deo.html
Thanks for posting! If you have a second, we tried our hand at a cover of Van Halen. As fellow music fans, we'd love if you would check it out. It's on our page. Don't be too tough on us :)
Such a wonderful example of David's genius. I am glad younger generations are opening up to less known tracks by him. So much depth.
I have been a mega Bowie fan since 1969. This is the song that made me a lifelong fan, long before he released Ziggy on the world and then morphed into all the other versions of himself.
Me too.
same
And me.
Am a bowie fan all life,but 63 now
This is the 1 that makes the hair stand up
So brilliant that you didn’t chose the obvious. I love this one
His best song! The passion in his voice ❤
Magnificent song! LOVE LOVE LOVE BOWIE!!!!! No one like him, Love seeing you young guys discussing the genius that was Bowie! Been my #1 love since I was 13. I am now 60!
Thank you so much for doing this reaction, homies. This is a big song that usually gets overshadowed by the album's title track.
Originally, Cygnet Committee started as a different song called Lover to the Dawn. David had started a community art program, but rather than participating in collaborations and creating a strong expressive environment, people showed up to hear David play and sing songs. It was frustrating to him. He adapted it into a commentary on the hippy movement.
Chris caught on really quickly to the 3 different perspectives; the different people participating in the movement. The first perspective seems to be of passive people who know the world needs change but only wish the best of luck for those creating it, because they find activism tiring and can't keep up with it. They are hippies that know only peace and love and do the minimum to get people aware of what change needs to be made. These sparrows are hippies in the morning and sleeping at night. The dark, foreboding tone shift brings in the 2nd perspective, which is that of the government. The government makes so many shifts to appease these hippies, but feels that they're asking for too much and that they're a drain on society. Elected officials view them as obstructive. The 3rd perspective is of the rebellious hippies that don't want to just sit and watch anymore as other people dictate what they're allowed to do in life. These militant hippies aren't necessarily the model for peace, but they want to achieve it through fighting against everyone who will oppress them.
A cygnet is a young swan, and while swans are generally symbolic of peace and tranquility, when provoked into action, they can also be very hostile, and in a flock they can be extremely dangerous. The sparrows have the swans forming groups on their behalf to become something bigger and stop the thinkers and talking men from dominating their livelihoods.
All the way back in 1969, before Ziggy Stardust or The Thin White Duke, David definitely had everything he needed to as a songwriter. He could grab you with his lyrics and his voice and the atmosphere he could create. He also had shorter songs on this album that could give you quick folk pop sensibility like Letter to Hermione and Janine, but these big sprawling progressive folk songs made massive statements that people would appreciate more as they broke the surface and looked for complex meaning in songs. It's fun to go back and hear songs like this knowing what David sounded like later. There was more wisdom and more flair, but this era had so much intelligence and he wasn't confined by being a celebrity to watch what he was saying or to stay away from people to avoid being recognized. He could observe the world and make statements on all the nuances he was passionate about.
Now that you've heard this era, the glam rock era is probably at the top of most peoples' lists. Starman will definitely be a good introduction for Ray. It's from 1972's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, 3 albums later. The live version on Top of the Pops was most people's first exposure to Ziggy Stardust. I still want my next request to be Lady Grinning Soul from the follow-up album Aladdin Sane, and I want to throw in the bridge between David's glam rock era and his soul era, Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise) from his 1974 album Diamond Dogs. The vocals and instrumentation on those songs are extreme highs, in my opinion.
I wish I could request a song from every 70s album, because The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, and Station to Station are also legendary and The Berlin Trilogy is considered David's most influential group of albums, but with Starman and Loving the Alien and reactions to other artists, you'll definitely be pretty busy. Good luck, fam.
Chris Meadows Our pleasure brotha, sorry for the wait! Thanks for all the insight. We’ve got your requests noted!
@@ExpertDummies I think you're very insightful, no dummies at all ;)
I almost believe the sincerity you convey about this song. I dont want to make any assumpions or opinions on something i watched for the first time. I am glad someone who doesnt make a living pretending to be intelligent enough to explain Bowie. The contrast you used, lets Dance... Have you listened to the lyrics. You guys should research your opinons a little more. Im sure Bowie has
He was 22 years old when he composed this song, which I consider a masterpiece, due to the depth of its lyrics. David questioned everything and took us with him in each of his questions!
Great reaction guys. A very good choice of song.
If you maybe want something more sinister and dissonant by Bowie try Sweet Thing/Candidate/Reprise from 1974, shortly after his Ziggy Stardust era. It's a long drugged dystopian song about human interaction, love and some weird concepts in a post apocalypse. Also his voice is absolutely haunting on that one and the production ist totally unique.
Sweet Thing is brilliance.Lyrically,vocally my fav Bowie,and I adore the man.Such a good suggestion Hanns Rhinesdale
Como un mega fan de Bowie puedo decir que probablemente esta es una de sus mejores creaciones.
Thank you! I was born in 71'.....it took me a minute to appreciate this tune and when I did....GLORIOUS! ITS SO GOOD....'They drained my very soul DRY'....
You won't hear lyrics like this ever again. They blew me away back in 1970.
Good for you guys for trying out this one!
Song ideally needs to be listened to in ONE SITTING otherwise you miss the full Bowie power x
Brilliant! Bowie at his best
Ooooh, really going back in time! I love this song.
I think it's something internal, and it's decisions, history in its making.
"memory of a free festival" is wonderful off this album. You guys are great! I love your seriousness and patience. Do a dive into "Scary Monsters" full album on here or on your own sometime. Bowie is chok full of prophesies and insights, he's a futurist.
My first encounter with Bowie's music was when I got the Ziggy Stardust album when I was a teenager in high school and Bowie's music became very much a part of my teenage years. It brings back great memories . Later when Cygnet Commitee came out I could not stop listening to it, and now here we are having young guys listening to it, it's so awesome to see.
Excellent top 5 of all Bowie, Queenbitch, quicksand, The Man Who Sold The World, Changes wild is the wind
Bowies brilliant song writing as good as anybody
Good work guys. This is a monumental song, straight from the heart of David Bowie. Too long to ever be played on the radio at the time, and so you only knew about it if you had to have the album. There was so much going on in the world in those days and David was there to tell us about it. I still get goosebumps listening to this song.
It is about the failure of the Hippie dreams and how it all just became a series of slogans.Revolutions start out with high ideals but end up with ' a child lad slain on the ground ' It Always turns to violence even turning on their own kind.As Pete Townshend said in The Who's song "Won't get fooled again " = " Meet the new Boss , same as the old Boss ". One of my favourite Bowie songs very powerful and full of emotion.
You might be interested in the comment I put on here of what David Bowie said about this song in a rare 1971 newspaper article. Can’t be bothered to rewrite it here , it’s too long but you will find the comment below this video somewhere x
Good feedback lads and a rare Bowie gem indeed
What a great track! I've always found the lyrics to be so beautiful,it is said to be from several points of view. I love the deeper cuts of Bowie, like this one, more than the super popular ones. Conversation Piece is and will always be one of my fav Bowie's songs, I believe it's on a remaster. Glad you dove deeper. I love Bowie's ability to write w/ ambiguity, he was a master of lyrics and a damn bright human. Thanks again guys,are ya'll going to have a patreon?
We were definitely planning on doing a Patreon! What type of content would you like to see on there?
@@ExpertDummies Bowie's God, so love more of him,but post punk,psych,glam,brit pop( kinda hate the brit pop term,but it's descriptive) I really like you guys! Thanks for replying you'll have a supporter!
I have always loved this song, it was amazing to see young people really paying attention to it. Watching your faces during it was a great reason to subscribe.
Top five best Bowie songs for me, so glad you guys reviewed it. Like all Bowie songs, it gets better every time you hear it (this song-even more intense). I’d love to hear your review of any song from the greatest album ever recorded, R+F of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
You are in the presence of a genius that is David bowie
This or Width of a Circle was the first Bowie song I ever heard. I was hooked. Honestly, for a few exceptions, I loved him up to Station to Station.
This whats happening right now across the Globe
Great song. The width of a circle
Yes, I agree, and Saviour Machine.
So hard to recommend just one Bowie track- so I’m going with ‘teenage wildlife’ off the scary monsters album
No doubt, possibly his most underrated song
David Bowie in a rare article in changes music paper 23 March 1971 when asked about this song: “wow, why did you pick on that one? That’s crazy, nobody picks that one, they get hung up on Memory of a free festival, space oddity and that’s it- maybe Janine, but this is remarkable. I basically wanted it to be a cry to fucking humanity. The beginning of the song when I first started it was saying- fellow man, I do love you-I love humanity. I adore it, it’s sensational, sensuous, exciting- it sparkled and it’s also pathetic at the same time. And it was a cry to listen. OK, that was the first section. And then I tried to get into the dialogue between two kinds of forces. First the sponsor of the revolution, the Quasi-capitalist who believes that he is left wing and puts support into a lot of the projects and gets no thanks for it. The other character was pure what...” (the next section was too blurry to read but it was something like “ended up being what I anticipated that particular movement for ---? and free ---? over in England, take people like --- ???, ----?.?” Later on in the interview he said “...any form of revolutionary left, whatever you want to call it, was Jack Kerouac, E.E. Cummings and Ginsburg period. Excuse me but that was where it was at. The hippies, I’m afraid don’t know what’s happening. I don’t think their are any anyway. The underground really went underground. Grand funk and all these people man, are the moderate choice of music. Underground is Yoko Ono, The Black Poets....these people scare the hell out of most freaks. They laugh at Yoko but it’s the whole cliche...” There was more, including talking about John Lennon, it was a long article.
Subscribed, not just for the fact that it's one of my idols masterpieces...but when I was your age I could not listen to anything but Bowie.....that's my fault I missed some good stuff, but caught up...this is an intense song to listen to unless your really into the great man, so absolutely well done on this one....it has soooo many layers....I cry at the end....when he sees a child lay slain on the ground.......just shows somethings never change....the song to me is very hippy age.....very of the moment yet ages perfectly......thanQ.
Fantastic song. Like you I’m a lifelong Bowie fan so hope you don’t mind me pointing you to these songs:
Supermodel Amour ua-cam.com/video/b1ztgqdHsjc/v-deo.html Long Way To Go ua-cam.com/video/HvgQouVo-sc/v-deo.html
Great reaction, there are so many amazing Bowie songs to check out!
Also the whole musical content as a musician stands alone. i could go on forever, but when it was released. this song and only this song changed my life. it has the ability to change you here now in the moment. No other song does this.
My favorite from my days when I knew nothing of his Ziggy phase and I was just starting to listen to his early stuff.
1st album; he wrote, arranged, produced and played most of the incumbents and was just a baby in the late 60s . this song crazy concept, crazy lyrics...insanely long about using a powerful man to break the back of the global overlords then usurping that man and as the hero of the uprising wondering if , in the absence of love, wasn't just a different brutality. anyway, you guys are awesome!
You need to listen to Bowie as a life experience.
Hey, you guys just straight in the deep end there. One of my favourites. Something no one else is doing but this guy is VERY good, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.
The story behind this song is well-documented - basically the song is about his disillusionment with the fracturing hippie movement (prompted in part by events surrounding the Growth Festival, which is ostensibly-but-possibly-not the subject of another song on the same album)
As a few others have mentioned, it would be great if you could react to Sweet thing/ Candidate/ Sweet thing reprise from David’s album Diamond Dogs. David Bowie produced that album and as well as lead and background vocals, played guitars, saxophones, mood synthesiser and mellotron on that album, in fact he played everything except keyboards, bass guitar and drums. Thankyou so much xxx
Lately due to russia invading Ukraine, I think of this as a song that radiates hope, "I want to believe, there's a light shining through somehow" that there's always HOPE. I hope the war stops. I hope ALL war stops. This song of Bowie's is indeed a classic. try listening to Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud.
Great job you guys. You’re wiser than your years. Keep it up.
"Cygnet Committee": recorded summer of '69. Released mid-Nov '69. You're to be commended (as others are saying below) for daring to tackle little-heard early Bowie. Personally never cared much for "CC," but seeing as how you're digging around at his recorded product from the turn of that decade, may we have the pleasure of your reactions to "An Occasional Dream," and/or "The Wild-Eyed Boy From Free Cloud"?
They're back-to-back on the flip side of this same album, if you're disposed at all to do 2 songs on one reaction. "Memory of a Free Festival" on the same side as those two is a good 'un, too! Many thanks again, lads, for going where few new clear reactors dare to go!!
Glad you enjoyed! We’ll definitely get to your suggestions so be on the lookout my friend
The cygnet ring a traditional English who's who , THE family seal ,crest , I went there with this track
Its about caring for his disabled brother
bowie got quick delusional with the hippy movement when he wrote this
This was Bowie's opus. It's one of his five best. It's not a song. It could be on a papyrus scroll. Do We are the Dead, Candidate, Bewley brothers, and Wild Eyed Boy just for starters to get Bowie.
Fantastic song. Like you I’m a lifelong Bowie fan so hope you don’t mind me pointing you to these songs: Supermodel Amour ua-cam.com/video/b1ztgqdHsjc/v-deo.html Long Way To Go ua-cam.com/video/HvgQouVo-sc/v-deo.html
That's a great shortlist of songs. I totally agree.
You need to take on The Bewlay Brothers. My Favorite Bowie tune!
Bringing this song back to the times it was written, in the very late 60's, the message is: what would you do in the name of love and freedom? How far would you go?
This song is dealing with the disillusionment of the failed dreams of the hippies' peace and love movement. The revolution fizzled, and life went on as before.
I have been listening to this song for all of my life. (50 years)I have probably listened to it a thousand times. To me this is about Jesus. He is the man talking first. Then the second part are the people who sell him out and crucify him. Amazing that you did this song. One of the best songs in the history of music. Thank you. This song is like religion to me as is the entire album. God bless.
Fantastic song. Like you I’m a lifelong Bowie fan so hope you don’t mind me pointing you to these songs: Supermodel Amour ua-cam.com/video/b1ztgqdHsjc/v-deo.html Long Way To Go ua-cam.com/video/HvgQouVo-sc/v-deo.html
bewlay Brothers. Three line poem ...HUNKY DORY album
*Eight line poem.
I think that Bowie was coming out of a bad breakup with Aleister Crowley's Ordo Temple Orientis ( whose motto is that of the Thelemites of Rabelais " Do What Thou Wilt. Love is the Law. Love under Will.") . And also if one listens to the whole album you will hear a song called Memory of a Free Festival, which shows all the innocent experimentation and open handed acceptance of the Summer of Love and it's message of 'Tune in, Turn On, Drop Out'. That youthful naïveté is followed by the Cygnet Committee that seems to hint at the reasons that the dream of the sixties fell apart. Politics and the manipulation of one's fellow man. In the end even going to war which was what the revolution was all against! So the Sixties soured as they entered into the more jaded '70s. Here we are still extruding ourselves from that dream of innocence as we have entered the age of Gangstah Rap. Where caring for your fellow man is last on the list of virtues. I hope I made myself understandable?
Yay - you got more than one view. Tremendous to see you both so earnestly engaging with the song. Cat People and Let’s Dance will never make it on my favourite DB songs.
Suz Such a deep song, Bowie made it so easy to engage with. A true talent.
Expert Dummies You really should try then Memory of a Free Festival which was the closing track off the same album. ☺️
I've heard this phase of Bowie described as Bob Dylan on acid. Dylan was brilliant, but give me beautiful, enigmatic Bowie over Dylan any day of the week.
Listen to a mountain called free cloud ❤️
Coronu, I want to live!
have listen to the next album man who sold the world , specially all the madmen
Great choice, but i can't believe you interrupted it to comment. When i first heard this in 1970 when i was 13 i was stunned and transfixed by this.
First off, I'm glad younger people are listening to his older music. In general they have the right idea about the song, but in a practical sense they miss the point. This song couldn't be more relevant today. We are being spoon fed what to think, and the machine's objective is to take advantage of its people. Bowie's vision could certainly come to pass, and it has in part already happened. Bowie isn't the creator of this concept. It's borrowed from others before in science fiction. Young people shouldn't just listen to Bowie like it's a good song, bad song, and be off with something else. They need to fight against the mind meld they're part of. Believe it in their gut, and think nothing else. That's what Bowie wanted back in 69. This song isn't a song at all. It's a form of a Bible against manipulative control.
Fantastic song. Like you I’m a lifelong Bowie fan so hope you don’t mind me pointing you to these songs: Supermodel Amour ua-cam.com/video/b1ztgqdHsjc/v-deo.html Long Way To Go ua-cam.com/video/HvgQouVo-sc/v-deo.html
I do not believe the use of the word "catholic" is in the religious but catholic can also mean universal and that is the way I take it in this song ( slit the universal throat). I also think that although this was early in his career the song shows his great voice.
It’s kind of at the time, gay men, especially, were not accepted, so, I think he was at the vanguard of breaking walls down culturally and torn between his own relevance. Kudos for tackling a very deep subject.
I think you will find this song is against. Bad Human behaviour 🕊❤️🙏🏾
nice
My interpretation over the last 40 years has always been this is the struggle God was having with himself during the final moments before initiating the great apocalypse.
Lover To the Dawn.
Cygnet Committee.
Cygnet Committee (BBC, 1970).
People, especially young people, more and more find themselves in the iron grip of authoritarian institutions. Reaction against the pigs or teachers in the schools, welfare pigs or the army, is generalizable and extends beyond the particular repressive institution to the society and the State as a whole. The legitimacy of the State is called into question for the first time in at least 30 years, and the anti-authoritarianism which characterizes the youth rebellion turns into rejection of the State, a refusal to be socialized into American society. Kids used to try to beat the system from inside the army or from inside the schools; now they desert from the army and burn down the schools.
First manifesto of what would become Weatherman, published in New Left Notes, 18 June 1969.
This country is crying out for a leader. God knows what it is looking for, but if it’s not careful it’s going to end up with a Hitler.
David Bowie, interview with Music Now!, 20 December 1969.
And we can force you to be free
And we can force you to believe
“Cygnet Committee.”
“Cygnet Committee” begins as David Bowie’s break-up letter to the Arts Lab, a communal arts venture he had co-founded that was run out of the back room of a Beckenham pub, and over its near-ten-minute span the song becomes a bile-filled, self-righteous attack aimed at the counterculture itself.
So something whose roots are in petty, specific gripes (Bowie had hoped the Arts Lab (which featured everything from tie-dying lessons to free-form jazz performances) would be a free-flowing exchange of ideas, and found it was mainly a bunch of grubby, needy kids trying to latch onto the slightly-more-famous types like Bowie-“I opened doors that would have blocked their way…I ravaged my finance just for those”) blossoms into a jeremiad against the New Left, cult figures, false hippie capitalists, deluded kids and their various empty slogans (including “kick out the jams” and “love is all we need”): it’s an unrelenting damning of a movement that Bowie was barely part of.
Two centuries before, England had avoided the revolutions that overtook America and France, and by 1969-1971 it seemed like the pattern was repeating-where French students had rioted in Paris and nearly caused DeGaulle’s government to collapse, and radical American students were bombing the Capitol and the Pentagon, the UK had remained relatively quiet (“London was the vacuum of late 1960s rebellion,” Peter Doggett). So “Cygnet Committee”‘s sustained burst of rage and elaborate paranoia seems unearned. After all, what did the guy who wrote “Laughing Gnome” or “Space Oddity” really have to say about the Revolution?
Bowie wasn’t the only one to sense a blackness at the heart of the counterculture-Pete Townshend had just written a rock opera about false messiahs, pop cultism and the rise of mob philosophy (or just listen to the way Merry Clayton’s voice cracks when she sings “Rape! Murder!” in “Gimme Shelter”). For Bowie, “Cygnet Committee” is the portal through which he would descend into his ’70s obsessions-supermen, glam violence, glam fascism, cults of personalities and various dystopias-and some of those figures appear in shadowy form here, slitting throats, killing children, betraying friends. Although Bowie ends the song with a plea for love and freedom, you’re left mainly with the phrase “I want to live,” the simplest, humblest request that a human being can make.
The song seems like a patchwork of three or four different pieces sewn together (it has at least one recognizable ancestor: the second/fifth verses and the start of the third/sixth are reused from a Bowie composition called “Lover to the Dawn” which he had demoed with John Hutchinson earlier in 1969). Two fairly concise four-line verses (sung over acoustic guitar, a fluid bassline and legato electric guitar) are followed by a 13-line, 48-bar rambling monster of a verse, which begins with a basic 4/4 rock accompaniment and then slackens into looser, almost free-form lines. The pattern repeats and this time the rambling verse (call it the radical faction) now conquers the song, extending for over five minutes until the fadeout. There is a coherence to it all, as the three verses are in step-up pattern (they begin in D, Eb and F, respectively, with the “rant” section of the third verse, for lack of a better word, starting in A Minor). The final exhortation (“I want to believe!”) is delivered over twining guitar and keyboard lines.
“Cygnet Committee” can be wearying to listen all the way through (at least I find), as the players either won’t or can’t rock when the song cries out for it-if you’re quoting the MC5, you ought to be laying down some heavy fire. Bowie’s vocal, in which he seems to be bleeding and purging himself so as to be ready for the years to come, carries much of the track.
Several writers have called this Bowie’s “first masterpiece,” which seems an overreach, though Bowie certainly was clawing here after something grander and more resonant than most of his earlier works. For an artist often accused of being cold and calculating, it’s a messy, wildly human performance.
Recorded ca. August-September 1969, on Space Oddity.
This was taken from "Pushing Ahead of the Dame" David Bowie, song by song.
Great lyrics by a great songwriter. This song is every political movement that started good and went bad. Another one along the same lines.
ua-cam.com/video/Q3EbAxdn0FY/v-deo.html
Bowie spiced lyrics together you fools. You can't work out any meaning. It is what it is. R.I.P David.
Some lines refers to the legend of Jesus Christ.
Thanks for posting! If you have a second, we tried our hand at a cover of Van Halen. As fellow music fans, we'd love if you would check it out. It's on our page. Don't be too tough on us :)
Don't do "Only Castles Burning."
Please don’t explain lyrics to us. Tell us how you feel. This is a reaction, not an explication. 😊
Someone should make a version of Beavis and Butthead that sucks , oh wait here we go 😴😴😴😴
Mck Wayne was the guitarist on this recording.