1745. “Hang On To Yourself” by David Bowie
Joey Michaels on May 31st, 2009From the Ziggy Stardust concert film:
I’ve always figured that “Hang On To Yourself” was a song Bowie used to remind himself not to get completely lost in his different rock personas. While Ziggy was a character he was able to shed rather easily, he got into a lot of trouble with his mid-70’s Thin White Duke character - charges of deplorable, even fascist behavior. Oh my!
The concept of Ziggy Stardust is pretty loose. Not every song on the album was originally written for the album. Obviously, “It Aint Easy” is a cover song. “Starman” was apparently included at the insistence of an A&R man (who was right for once). “Hang On To Yourself” was originally recorded by Bowie a couple of years earlier with a ban called Arnold Corns.
I think I’ve only really discussed one concept album in detail. My feeling is that, when you’re putting an album together, its better to assemble a great album than necessarily a great story. Hence, most concept albums are “loose” concept albums at best.
It is my belief that spending a lot of time trying to interpret Ziggy Stardust is just silly. The music is great. The lyrics are also generally great, but if they get silly sometimes in order to tie things in with Ziggy, well, that’s sort of a byproduct of trying to force a song into a concept, you know?