taking sides: BOWIE vs DYLAN

That should read: Dylan an obvious influence on Bowie's worst lyrics.

Madness reigns

Just compare their covers.

But Dylan's only a few years older isn't he?
Bowie's 1st release = 1964
Dylan's 1st release = 1961

Dylan's great, but in the final analysis I don't really buy into his rootsy, I-am-Woodie-Guthrie schtick, Bowie is more the man of the age.

I doubt Bob Dylan would agree with you

Haven't heard his cover of "God Only Knows," have you, JB?

http://homepage.mac.com/danielmartin/Dylan/images/jpg/cds/1985-EmpireBurlesque.jpg

VERSUS THIS:

http://www.illustrated-db-discography.nl/12inch/pix/NLMDUS.jpg

Dylan on the other hand seems to get richer as he ages for me: for one thing, the whole "Woody Guthrie troubadour!" accusation really only seems to pertain to pre-'67 Dylan; once you hit Blonde on Blonde, he's considerably more chameleon-like (chameleonic?) than Bowie. He gives so many different looks, and is so much harder to pin down: his sources (or "influences" if mark s isn't listening) are more disparate and harder to predict, and what he does with them is much more surprising than what Bowie does with his (i.e., for example, Aladdin Sane: "Say, I've been listening to Brecht/Weill! What if someone like say me were to try & update that whole sort of thing for the wild adrogynous seventies, that'd be somefink else eh?") (and before anybody gets real defensive about this, I love Aladdin sane to bits, but the longer you look at it, the less brainy it seems)

Having said all that, Bowie as his most pop (some of the stuff on The Lodger [or Lodger if you insist/prefer], "Sound and Vision," "Ashes to Ashes," some of the underrated post-Let's Dance singles e.g. "Blue Jean") has a weightless depth that Dylan can't really touch - Bowie's interested in dance, Dylan never has been, so Bowie wins when it comes to the physical realm of music experience: which realm is no small part of the bargain!

he had a lot more than just that schtick! rent one don't look back!

I don't know about this! I think John Wesley Harding is a pretty harrowing evisceration of a lot of the roots/authenticity tropes - certainly the only time I can think of post-Highway 61 that he invokes the guy-with-guitar-lettin'-his-voice-be-heard!!! trope is "Hurricane," which is rather more savage than what one usually means by "roots" stuff

also, Dylan's eyeliner on the Rolling Thunder tour > Bowie's eyeliner once he got into the nose candy

Yeah, tell that to Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and the Japanese novelist from whome he wittily and shamelessly pilfered ideas.

Dylan's always been as much a poseur as Bowie, which is why Bowie's always been attracted to him.

or MORE of a poseur, probably.

yeah, jeez people are acting almost willfully ignorant of dylan on this thread.

p.s. i loves david bowie a whole bunch.

(releasing John Wesley Harding at the height of psychedelia was as shocking as Bowie cutting Young Americans after Diamond Dogs, btw)

Were either of those events really "shocking?"

"'Wasn't Born to Follow': what C&W hokum would be if conventional C&W had been allowed to drift into the conventional contemporary public freak scene ("you may lead me to the castle where the rivers of our vision flow into one another"): the real John Wesley Harding move if Dylan had continued to be aware instead of being engulfed by the Duchamp quasi-retirement move."

"Duchamp's total retirement move was not enough to devalue all the mere objects he gave significance pressure to, but Dylan's short term vacation has been enough to do just that for his own objects, and not even in the Duchampian sense of nearly instant antique, just the way Elvis Presley's army hitch set up the same situation for him."

"Hmmm and isn't that where Dylan was playing golf just before his motorcycle accident opened up a year for everybody to structurally fill in and articulate and improve (by leaps and bounds) the Great Dylan Grocery List Story Song (since the dictionary was always open so wide to him)? Yeah, so when Dylan finally gets around to coming back, everything he *knew* everyone else *assumes* and the best he can do is to "get back in the race" with "moon's gonna shine like a spoon" ("I'll Be Your Baby Tonight"), working out in the nth (or n + first) time around mere fact-of-rhyme category, which Dylan had originally plucked out of rock as an explicit easy-as-pie rock-poetic gimmick-qua-gimmick."

if Bowie ever had the nads to pull a move as bold as Nashville Skyline, I haven't heard it, and I own all of his major albums + some of the stinkers

it's both simpler (Dylan had new tunes, wanted to play 'em with somebody) and more complicated (there's a lot that can be said about the hermetic little narratives on the album) than all that, but Meltzer's so preoccupied with Dylan-and-the-scene that he doesn't really seem to hear the album that exists apart from the backstory - not that the backstory doesn't also enrich the album as a gesture, it's just not the Here's The Story that Meltzer seems to think

(& btw Bowie's inability to articulate meaningful musical dialogue with his peers [save maybe Eno] is also part of why I'll take Dylan in this TS: Bowie, again, can pastiche like nobody else, but can't pervert/reconfigue as text-productively as Dylan)

(and by "text" I don't mean "verbiage" ok thx)

Not even with Lou Reed, John Lennon, James Brown, Huey Smith, Kraftwerk, Neu! and Iggy?

Not at all convinced by this

xpost fair play Dadismus! am listening to Harding now - I mean, the case can be made that Dylan's just lost his narrative thread here, that the songs just don't hang together: but the incredibly abrupt ending of "As I Went Out One Morning," the substitution of "St Augustine" for "Joe Hill," the twisting-in-the-wind ending of "Watchtower" - all seem pretty studied moves

xpost I love those albums! I just don't think they're as incredible as everybody else thinks they are - the instrumental stuff bores the shit out of me except for "Speed of Life"

Sinatra, Brando, Dirk Bogarde

it's the best counterargument for what I'm saying though that's for sure, and it's the one I always forget. It's pretty anomalous though - Diamond Dogs, Hunky Dory, Young Americans, Aladdin Sane - these are all (very excellent! very interesting!) bricolage pieces

xpost I guess! though I'm a huge fan of Fripp/Eno's No Pussyfooting and of Eno's pop albums (and for that matter of a lot of Eno's pals) - I just think Bowie's use of Eno is pretty timid

Honestly, I don't even know as that Meltzer really did dislike John Wesley Harding all that much! He actually doesn't say a whole lot about it in those quotes. I typed 'em up in response to Alfred's statement that the release of JWH at the height of the psychedelic movement was shocking.

Did Cream notice something quite current in Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf?

Okay. Fuck a 'Jeepers in 100 years people will all be listening to Dylan still OMG!' stance, in fact fuck *any* stance about any artist that way. Because you're not going to be around then, none of us will, and it seems to me that it's far more apt to talk about what excites you now, here, rather than grasping at an unlived-in future to justify your past and present.

Yes - rather obviously I'd think! But either way the comparison is specious: Cream was playing songs off of old records they'd found (although NB the Johnson album, King of the Delta Blues Singers, was actually only first released in 1961: so it was almost totally current for Clapton 'n' them), whereas Hendrix is covering a song that somebody just wrote last year

Who said Hank Williams was musically conservative in 1951? Or Jerry Lee in 1956?

I don't share your estimation of Dylan's humanity though O. Nate - I think he & Bowie are a well-matched Taking Sides precisely because they're both unreliable narrators/historians

dylan wasn't musically conservative in 1965! for 1962, or that matter.

Dylan also "excites" me because he's got more balls than all of the Bowies, Johnny Rottens, Jello Biafras and Neil Youngs put together. If I need to explain why, then you're hopeless.

I think if Hendrix "noticed something current" in "All Along the Watchtower," it was the fact that the song could be adapted as more mere psychedelia. (Similarly, Cream played old blues standards as psychedelia, as in, "Whoa, trip out - the BLUES, man") Doesn't mean JWH ain't a roots album.

actually "dylan vs johnny rotten" would be a MUCH more interesting debate than "dylan vs bowie," if only because lydon has a lot more in common with '62-66 era dylan than any of the so-called "new dylans" ever did.

when I die, it's gonna be total chaos

I will always allow for the fact that someone stumbles across a piece of music, old or new, without immediate context -- that they can hear something randomly and go, "Oh right!" Thank heavens for that as well. But if you're saying that the collective universal 'we' -- an ill-defined construct if ever there was one -- generally does not hear something like Mozart for the first time outside of a specific construct of 'here's the classics/this is 'quality' music/etc.' -- not necessarily *reading* it, but experiencing and encountering Mozart (or just about any 'standard' classical artist from that age or afterwards) in that initial fashion -- then I, at the least, think you're a bit misguided.

His music just plain sounds better and stays with me longer. Is that put simply enough for you, or will you reply "fuck that stance" as well?

Hardly. If anything you just stated my own take on radical subjectivity in a few simple words.

As for 'balls,' the quality of risk-taking does not automatically equal the quality of work. One can admire the former without thinking the latter succeeds.

I don't see how being human and being unreliable are supposed to be contradictory. I'm not claiming that one is more reliable/unreliable than the other - that's pretty much tangential to my concerns. I'm just talking about sensing the complexities of a real personality grappling with real issues - whether they are presented fairly or objectively is not the point - I don't trust Dylan to tell me the truth about any relationship he's been in - but I do think he hits on some universal images that convey what it feels like to be in those situations - and to my mind those images are much more startling and pungent than what I find in Bowie.

It's a hard choice, but in times of personal struggle and sadness, I turn to Dylan. So, I have to go with him, even if I do adore Bowie and Low and Station to Station.

I never made that argument. It was just a bonus comment

"But if you're saying that the collective universal 'we' -- an ill-defined construct if ever there was one -- generally does not hear something like Mozart for the first time outside of a specific construct of 'here's the classics/this is 'quality' music/etc.' -- not necessarily *reading* it, but experiencing and encountering Mozart (or just about any 'standard' classical artist from that age or afterwards) in that initial fashion -- then I, at the least, think you're a bit misguided."

This reminds me of political doublespeak at its finest. Were you a press secretary in the Nixon administration?

yeah, lydon didn't have the career dylan did (and getting another JL record that's even listenable seems a lot more unlikely than getting another half-decent bowie record), but if you just compare their peak periods (65-66 for bob, 77-81 or so for john), you've got about four great albums for both of them.

i think the reason i compare them is that lydon seems like one of the very few ppl in pop who's driven by the same intensity and focus and vision that dylan had at his best - guys like elvis costello who get compared to dylan more often don't have anything like that. there's also a real viciousness about both of them; "positively 4th street" isn't so far from one of lydon's diatribes on the first PiL album, really. and for a short time they seemed to tower over everything around them just through the sheer force of their personalities.

Hey, if so, you'd be a perfect dupe.

America wins, obv.

And neither do I – but it is fun and instructive to compare their worst periods.

Obviously not, because I called you on it.

Seriously - i've distilled all of Bowie's pre-1980 material into about 7 good hours. Dylans Basement Tapes alone are worth at least 4 hours -- Dylan by a country mile.

Can we chop this into haiku?

Jim and Ned get a room ffs, nothing personal to either of you but honestly

Exactly.

1) the harmonica
2) the hair
3) the funny remarks between songs
(etc etc)
955) the lyrics

"This sandwich is really great, you should eat it."
"Why, does it taste great?"
"It's not just that it tastes great. This sandwich is really going to stand the test of time"

America wins, obv.

Though it pains me, on this occasion, Matos speaks truth.

Dylan. By a long, long way.

The notion that Dylan in some way is more 'real', more I-mean-it-man, is just strange, and I'd think even the Dylan who seems to have some idea lately who he might be would find the notion fanciful at best.

[Note: One of Xgau's most betraying and ludicrous toss-off disses was that, as of Heathen, Bowie had finally learned how to sing. Please.]

Anyway--music. Dylan makes some terrific stuff, but the only work of any real influence and evolutionary value was the 60s stuff. That's not faint praise.

But when you look at Bowie's streak--not only of his own stuff, but of course,Lou, Mott, Iggy, et al-- inventing/co-opting/transferring-from-other-mediums entire genres, sound pallettes, recording techniques--well, the comparison is downright unfair ro ol Bob. (I love that Enon interview where he talks of listening to Outside for the first time in years and being utterly gobsmacked and unable to comprehend its majesty.)

Then there's the matter of his songwriting, which up to and including Reality, is inarguable, by anyone who understands the craft of songwriting, world class and beyond.

As I believe Ned said once, or perhaps in paraphrase, Bowie IS modern pop music. Dylan is a great icon, repository of assorted boomer chimeras, a great songwriter and an always interesting presense.

So Bowie.

i am ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that dylan has never done anything as good as station to station.

i'm more interested in the john wesley harding discussion, because boy that's a weird record. i don't think "conservative" is the right word -- if it sounds like anything else it's maybe astral weeks, except jwh is a lot more spare and spooky, some kinda backwoods mystic jazz. i like how short and elusive and foreboding the songs are, there are strange things in the air on that album. the key line to the whole record, i think, is "nothing was revealed." the whole thing is anti-prophetic, you come out of it knowing less than when you went in.

i think that the fans of frank sinatra, bing crosby, billie holliday, and the weavers would strongly disagree with this contention. not to mention bob dylan himself, if he were here to argue the point.

frankly, the number of really stupid, smug and ignorant comments about dylan (and his place in music and/or pop-culture) by his fans is one of the biggest blocks i have to appreciating his music.

see, this is PRECISELY the problem that i have w/ dylan -- not the voice so much (though it doesn't help), but more b/c i'm just not into old-timey blues (or folk for that matter) & the man's music ITSELF is just so darn monochromatic and deadly dull to me. (which would also explain why i rather like it when others cover dylan's songs and the music ITSELF is something other than just some guy plunking on an acoustic guitar ... and, consequently, i don't mind some of dylan's stuff with The Band).

otherwise, dylan might as well be jandek -- without the oddball claustrophobic back-story/mythos to spice things up.

As far as my thoughts go I think this one goes to Bob Dylan. I really need to sit down and discover every period by both artists. From what I do know of each Dylan wins but only know that now where even five years ago I wouldn't of even come close to that realization.

i like how short and elusive and foreboding the songs are, there are strange things in the air on that album. the key line to the whole record, i think, is "nothing was revealed." the whole thing is anti-prophetic, you come out of it knowing less than when you went in.

agree strongly - every song on it sounds like either everybody's working fast, trying to just get it over with - or the tape's sped up a little before they add the vocals. (I don't think so though.) There's a slightness to it - Dylan's not pushing even the best lines on it, just sorta working in a corner as if to say "nothing to see here, just some dude singing meaningless little songs" but each one seems like it's got something hidden in it. And I'm hardly even a huge Dylan freak - I think JWH is the only non-"major" Dylan album I own, I just bought it randomly one day ("The Nice Price" y'know). And it stunned me and is key in this TS because when did Bowie ever do something quite so elliptical? Bowie's gestures are almost always grand and cinematic; the only thing he did that compares to JWH in my mind in Pin-Ups, which is an interesting head-fake.

Here's where we part company. Bits of Station to Station and Low project the same indeterminacy. You can listen to the title track and "TVC15" for years without pondering the compelling suggestiveness of the lyrics, in part because Bowie and the band, in their coked-up frenzy, don't stop to ladle Meaning all over them. In this context even the grand ballad "Word in a Wing" seems queer and ethereal, as not-quite-there as, say, "I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine."

also the Basement Tapes are more or less rehearsals for JWH, aren't they - they get shelved, then Dylan goes to Nashville

right, yeah. they're historically significant, but much less so aesthetically. i mean, i like a lot of his protest songs, and i like his wordy songs too, but i also like when he sings "little red wagon, little red bike." it's like pauline kael said about citizen kane, not enough people bother to mention how much fun it is. not that dylan's always a laff riot (although he is a lot), but...i guess it's like any "classic." over on a 'moby dick' thread on i love books a little while ago, we were talking about how the book is so much more engaging and light on its feet than its big weighty rep gives it credit for, and dylan's a victim of the same thing.

I would never have expected this comment from Alfred.

Not sure what you mean. That the aesthetic value of "Blowin' in the Wind" or the Blonde on Blonde album is not as significant as the fact that they were innovative? Important to people?

And to actually comment on the thread topic, I don't see as that David Bowie has ever done anything near as majestic as a song like "Sooner or Later (One of Us Will Know)."

i mean that dylan's protest songs and formal innovations are more important from a culture-history standpoint than from the standpoint of what actually makes me want to listen to them. like, what i like about "the times they are a-changin'" isn't its socio-historical significance, it's the surety in his voice, the punk sneer of it. which are the same things i like about "positively 4th street," which doesn't have any socio-historical significance. and ditto "god save the queen," you know?

I would never have expected this comment from Alfred.

-- Rockist_Scientist (Al__suca...), February 12th, 2006.

I hate those lines.

x-post (still reading the thread)

Alfred, I guess I don't really know that much about your taste, but I would have simple-mindedly expected your very pro-pop tendencies to put you in the Bowie camp. (Not that I can't see how Dylan is pop blah blah blah, but you know, Bowie seems more obviously to have the things I thought you looked for in pop, based on limited evidence, admitedly.)

ha, i just dropped them in because i was listening to that song at the moment. i think it's a funny track, but also just sort've a reminder of what a flip hipster dylan was at the time. which was maybe the least of his qualities, but i get the sense people who don't listen to him much or like him much have a weirdly po-faced idea of him.

Well, see, Dylan wasn't particularly good at pure pop moments, with all too obvious exceptions. You'd think Bowie would be superior on this front, but when he wasn't involved in some conscious genre manipulation he was much worse than Dylan (see Tonight).

Wistful? That's crazy-talkin' And have you heard the German version? It sound like he's ripping his throat out with his soul bloodily attached.

Bowie is utterly capable of divinely pure pop moments up to this day. "Everyone Says Hi" and "Slipaway" from Heathen and "Never Gonna Grow Old" from Reality are undeniably chewy morsels, immaculately crafted, Brill Building-y gems o' pop.

And hello? "Absolute Beginners" anyone? Does pop get more gorgeous? Or "Strangers When We Meet"?

Bowie was of course influenced by Dylan, but more approrpiately, you;d say that Bowie ingested Dylan aspects like he ingests everything that comes his way and crafts them into newly minted forms. Which is another reason Dave beats Bob for me.

True--you have to suffer through Bowie's lame effort to cop the Hot Topic nihilism market--the 'gothic hyper-cycle' interlude hoohaw--but the music--aside from the mediocre opening song which sets up the aforementioned hypercycle hoohaw--is absolutely brilliant, and in terms of Eno and Bowie's collaboration, easily transcends anything acheived on Low.

British glam-rock pioneer David Bowie, who toasted the bard on 1972's Song for Bob Dylan, notes, "Dylan taught my generation that it was OK to write pop songs about your worst nightmares."

Oh, hear this Robert Zimmerman
I wrote a song for you
About a strange young man called Dylan
With a voice like sand and glue
His words of truthful vengeance
They could pin us to the floor
Brought a few more people on
And put the fear in a whole lot more

Ah, Here she comes
Here she comes
Here she comes again
The same old painted lady
From the brow of a superbrain
She'll scratch this world to pieces
As she comes on like a friend
But a couple of songs
From your old scrapbook
Could send her home again

You gave your heart to every bedsit room
At least a picture on my wall
And you sat behind a million pair of eyes
And told them how they saw
Then we lost your train of thought
The paintings are all your own
While troubles are rising
We'd rather be scared
Together than alone

Ah, Here she comes
Here she comes
Here she comes again
The same old painted lady
From the brow of a superbrain
She'll scratch this world to pieces
As she comes on like a friend
But a couple of songs
From your old scrapbook
Could send her home again

Now hear this Robert Zimmerman
Though I don't suppose we'll meet
Ask your good friend Dylan
If he'd gaze a while down the old street
Tell him we've lost his poems
So they're writing on the walls
Give us back our unity
Give us back our family
You're every nation's refugee
Don't leave us with their sanity

Ah, Here she comes
Here she comes
Here she comes again
The same old painted lady
From the brow of a superbrain
She'll scratch this world to pieces
As she comes on like a friend
But a couple of songs
From your old scrapbook
Could send her home again

A couple of songs
From your old scrapbook
Could send her home again
Oh, here she comes, here she comes
Oh, here she comes, here she comes

OR, ask Mick Ronson, er, wait, oh piss, Dylan it is!

Whoa, okay, I have to hear this. I really want to be proven wrong about Dylan. I am waiting.

Hey Eisbar, what great songs did any of those guy write? Are you rocking out to "Goodnight Irene" a lot these days? And Frank and Bing, deep thinkers, c'mon. Billie gets credit for singing "Strange Fruit" but not writing it. Beside Woody Guthrie (never a big record seller) the only antecedents I find for Dylan are really Hank Williams, Cole Porter and Jacques Brel, popular singer/SONGWRITERS who became important cultural icons, musicans who helped create the world we live in today. I think Bowie is a musical genius too, but nowhere near Dylan in poetic ability or cultural impact. It's like comparing Mark McGuire to Babe Ruth, one whose been good recently to probably the best ever.

I was talking more about the structures of the two songs ("One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" and "Heroes") and the energy and spirit in the music itself.

I can't believe someone in 2006 still believes this hooey. As if it mattered who wrote what.

JB Young, meanwhile, smokes the sweet crack.

Sorry to break it to you, but I meet people like this ALL THE TIME.

(xpost)

It's most relaxing!

That's pretty bizzare. You might want to read his book or check out his radio show when it gets up and running. Or maybe listen to almost anything he's recorded since about 1978. It might surprise you.

Some of the born-again Dylan stuff, especially on Saved, is terrific--play "Solid Rock" really loud sometime if you don't believe me.

The fundamental-reinvention-of-songwriting-technique thing is something I think Dylan's done even more than Bowie. I mean, most of "Love and Theft" would've seemed VERY weird on any previous Dylan record...

I think hating Tin Machine is more a reflex than a reality. I mean, when it comes to horrid Bowie, the Glass Spider period stuff is pretty horrid.

Bowie:

1. Fake Brit R&B guy
2. Mod rocker
3. Donovan-y Hippie twit
4. Ambisexual folk crooner
5. Ziggy
6. Burroughs-style debauched Diamond Dog
7. Plastic soul Bowie
8. Coke-addled, proto-fascist Bowie/Thin White Duke
9. Dissasociative art recluse
10. Clean cut international pop star
11. 80s content-sucked shadow of himself
12. Simulated hard rocker
13. A sort of futurist goth Dirk Bogarde/Damian Hirst fusion for Outside
14. Jungle oppoutunist
15. AOR contender (...hours)
16. Fairly-normal-if-insanely-wealthy-guy-writing-terrific-pop-songs Bowie

Vs Dylan's what?

most people on this board are choosing bowie over dylan, and i reckon most are over 30, and idealise the teenage space cadet, the mindless futurism, the bright feathers and colours of the dream. Cos as serious young men and women we underrated it, and dearly wish to compensate for that now.
dylan was young when he made his great music and that old cracked voice spoke exclusively to the young, its faux ancient wisdom and prophecies heralding a time of iconoclasm. Key moment: the hysterical laughter that greets the audacity of Bob Dylan's 115th dream. Dare to mock the founding fathers! too bad the muse flew and he spent the rest of his years searching for it again. But don't under-rate him now when that voice is needed more than ever.

Bowie still wins.

But Bob's obviously got the 60s on him. 80s, let's call it a draw, or give Bob the nod if you count unreleased songs like Blind Willie McTell.

Bob crushes in the 90s, and that's before the really big guns come out with Love and Theft.

Dylan wins

So Bowie's got a new CD eh? What's that about?

Oh, he's just inventing entire new genres, brilliantly co-opting others, rocking his brains out, writing songs with about 37 chords and several key changes, none of which you notice and in general taking a massive crap on the skills of 99.9999999911999% of all songwriters on Earth.

(Yawn.) Oh. More of that, how dull. So I hear Dylan's working on a new CD.

Yeah--it's supposed to be a fairly live-spunding retro collection of moderately tuneful song about getting old.

BLOODY BRILLIANT!!!!!!!

So Bowie's got a new CD eh? What's that about?

Oh, he's just inventing entire new genres, brilliantly co-opting others, rocking his brains out, writing songs with about 37 chords and several key changes, none of which you notice and in general taking a massive crap on the skills of 99.9999999911999% of all songwriters on Earth.

(Yawn.) Oh. More of that, how dull. So I hear Dylan's working on a new CD.

Yeah--it's supposed to be a fairly live-sounding retro collection of moderately tuneful song about getting old.

BLOODY BRILLIANT!!!!!!!

Dylan a hundred times over as a writer.

So ? I guess.

"Little Wonder"

Stinky weather, Fat shaky hands
Dopey morning Doc,
Grumpy gnomes
Little wonder then, little wonder
You little wonder,
little wonder you
Big screen dolls,
tits and explosions
Sleepytime, Bashful but nude
Little wonder then, little wonder
You little wonder,
little wonder you
I'm getting it

Intergalactic, see me to be you
It's all in the tablets,
Sneezy Bhutan
Little wonder then, little wonder
You little wonder,
little wonder you
Mars happy nation,
sit on my karma
Dame meditation, take me away
Little wonder then,
little wonder
You little wonder,
little wonder you

[CHORUS]
Sending me so far away, so far away
So far away, so far away
So far away, so so far away
So far away, so far away
So far away, so so far away

Little wonder
You little wonder, you
Little wonder
You little wonder you

And here's Dylan:

"Mississippi"

Every step of the way we walk the line
Your days are numbered, so are mine
Time is pilin' up, we struggle and we scrape
We're all boxed in, nowhere to escape

City's just a jungle, more games to play
Trapped in the heart of it, trying to get away
I was raised in the country, I been workin' in the town
I been in trouble ever since I set my suitcase down

Got nothing for you, I had nothing before
Don't even have anything for myself anymore
Sky full of fire, pain pourin' down
Nothing you can sell me, I'll see you around

All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime
Could never do you justice in reason or rhyme
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Well, the devil's in the alley, mule's in the stall
Say anything you wanna, I have heard it all
I was thinkin' about the things that Rosie said
I was dreaming I was sleeping in Rosie's bed

Walking through the leaves, falling from the trees
Feeling like a stranger nobody sees
So many things that we never will undo
I know you're sorry, I'm sorry too

Some people will offer you their hand and some won't
Last night I knew you, tonight I don't
I need somethin' strong to distract my mind
I'm gonna look at you 'til my eyes go blind

Well I got here following the southern star
I crossed that river just to be where you are
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Well my ship's been split to splinters and it's sinking fast
I'm drownin' in the poison, got no future, got no past
But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free
I've got nothin' but affection for all those who've sailed with me

Everybody movin' if they ain't already there
Everybody got to move somewhere
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interesting right about now

My clothes are wet, tight on my skin
Not as tight as the corner that I painted myself in
I know that fortune is waitin' to be kind
So give me your hand and say you'll be mine

Well, the emptiness is endless, cold as the clay
You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way
Only one thing I did wrong
Stayed in Mississippi a day too long

Dylan is quite obviously a better lyricist, even his Jesus songs beat Bowie's best, but lyrics are only half the game

And in the 00s, Bowie has been constantly way better than anything on "Love Theft".

Bowie wins, with Dylan being the 60s champion among them (and hadn't it been for "Scary Monsters" I'd say "Infidels" and "Oh Mercy" made Bowie the obvious 80s winner among them too)

now you are talkingn crazy, Love & Theft is outstanding

maybe we should switch the thread tittle to "bob dylan" vs. "david bowie"?

i guess what i was starting to push at when i started this update was wondering about the effect of an artist completely subsuming themselves as a fabrication; wondering why/how some people can pull this off, and create an artist/persona which is as much, if not more so, art than their output. this also brings in how the public reaction is almost necessary in creating this "artist". itsa very strage participatory process of creation.