{"id":971,"date":"2016-01-12T11:13:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T16:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/?p=971"},"modified":"2024-05-28T08:14:39","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T12:14:39","slug":"on-david-bowies-bluebird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/?p=971","title":{"rendered":"On David Bowie&#8217;s Bluebird"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Re David Bowie&#8217;s &#8220;Lazarus,&#8221; from his brilliant final album, <em>Blackstar<\/em>, the <em>New York Times<\/em> has this to say:  &#8220;The song is a man in total distress, and then finding a way out, in his imagination, so he could still be alive, in freedom, as a bluebird. It\u2019s the message of the whole show.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/lazarus.jpeg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-974\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/lazarus-150x150.jpeg\" alt=\"lazarus\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-974\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/lazarus-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/lazarus-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/lazarus.jpeg 426w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a question.  Could Bowie have known Charles Bukowski&#8217;s famous poem &#8220;Bluebird&#8221;? Probably? Listen to this brilliant reading of Bukowski&#8217;s short poem by &#8220;Tom O&#8217;Bedlam&#8221; on YouTube: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HVdpfhsj6uI\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=HVdpfhsj6uI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bukowski&#8217;s earlier poem heads in some different directions from Bowie, exploring what macho male identity tries to kill or hide.  But both CB and DB use the bluebird to signify the beautiful and the immortal in us&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Re David Bowie&#8217;s &#8220;Lazarus,&#8221; from his brilliant final album, Blackstar, the New York Times has this to say: &#8220;The song is a man in total distress, and then finding a way out, in his imagination, so he could still be &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/?p=971\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,7,8,1],"tags":[124,122,123,65,64,92,24,97],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=971"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":977,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions\/977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/pschmid1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}