Our lives at 45 rpm

Eleventh in a series on one Dullard's collection of 45s. Read the previous post here.

Song: "Absolute Beginners"
Artist: David Bowie
Year released: 1986
Highest U.S. chart position: 53
Video available? Yes (extended version)

In the erratic career of David Bowie, the 1980s were especially tumultuous. He began the decade with the masterful "Scary Monsters," essentially the endgame to his Berlin period. He then turned to danceable pop with "Let's Dance" — a commerce-friendly trend extended with "Tonight" (and its silly but enjoyable single "Blue Jean") and through "Never Let Me Down," an ironically titled disappointment that seriously wounded Bowie's status as a Major Rock Star. He then killed off that persona altogether by forming the noisy feedback-fest of Tin Machine, a bookend to the similarly abrasive "Scary Monsters."

Where does "Absolute Beginners" place on this timeline? Think of it as a tangent off that story arc, much as Bowie's flirtation with acting is a tangent off his musical ambitions. "Absolute Beginners" is a soundtrack song, similar in mood and sheen to "This Is Not America," another Bowie song done for a movie in the mid-1980s. "Beginners" is not a cover of the famous Jam song; it's a Bowie composition from the little-seen Julien Temple film of the same name, a tale of Mod love in 1950s England. (The whole thing started as a book by Colin MacInnes.)

As befits a movie theme, "Absolute Beginners" has the tone of a high-cost production number. The team of Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley bring a crystal clearness to the sound that finds its foundation in cool synths and its ornamentation in horn sections. These British producers plot the song out note for note in clever fashion, as a small army of session players (the sleeve lists 14 musicians backing Bowie) prove their chops from start to finish.

Over this formidable yet antiseptic soundscape, Bowie tells a typical Hollywood tale of desperate love. His lyrics here are not his strongest, but they match the content of the story adequately. He starts with humility:

I've nothing much to offer
There's nothing much to take
I'm an absolute beginner
And I'm absolutely sane

He follows through with bravado:

As long as we're together
The rest can go to hell
I absolutely love you

Then, he offers a sop to the "musical" nature of a soundtrack song:

If our love song
Could fly over mountains
Sail over heartaches
Just like the films

Wistful yet full of hope, these "Beginners" make for a memorable Bowie track, with enough emotional gravity to pull the production and lyrics together. As a movie theme, it works. As a part of the Bowie canon, it's interesting, but not essential.