Soul Love
David Bowie Lyrics
Stone love, she kneels before the grave
A brave son, who gave his life
To save the slogans
That hovers between the headstone and her eyes
For they penetrate her grieving
New love, a boy and girl are talking
New words, that only they can share in
New words, a love so strong it tears their hearts
To sleep through the fleeting hours of morning
Love is careless in its choosing
Sweeping over cross and baby
Love descends on those defenseless
Idiot love will spark the fusion
Inspirations have I none
Just to touch the flaming dove
All I have is my love of love
And love is not loving
Soul love, the priest that tastes the word and
Told of love, and how my God on high is
All love, though reaching up my loneliness evolves
By the blindness that surrounds him
Love is careless in its choosing
Sweeping over cross and baby
Love descends on those defenseless
Idiot love will spark the fusion
Inspirations have I none
Just to touch the flaming dove
All I have is my love of love
And love is not loving
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: David Bowie
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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Soul Love.
Soul Love (live, 1973).
Soul Love (live, 1978).
Soul Love (rehearsal, 1983).
I was in love once, maybe, and it was an awful experience. It rotted me, drained me, and it was a disease. Hateful thing, it was.
David Bowie, interviewed by Cameron Crowe in Playboy, September 1976.
“Soul Love,” so sweet on its surface, so often interpreted as a picture of “youthful romance” (as per 1001 Greatest Albums) or as a message of universal peace and brotherhood, is rather clinical at heart. Read Full BioSoul Love.
Soul Love (live, 1973).
Soul Love (live, 1978).
Soul Love (rehearsal, 1983).
I was in love once, maybe, and it was an awful experience. It rotted me, drained me, and it was a disease. Hateful thing, it was.
David Bowie, interviewed by Cameron Crowe in Playboy, September 1976.
“Soul Love,” so sweet on its surface, so often interpreted as a picture of “youthful romance” (as per 1001 Greatest Albums) or as a message of universal peace and brotherhood, is rather clinical at heart. Love, whether that of a mother, lover or priest, is shown as being amoral, delusive, pointless and ruinous. (Love is “sweeping over cross and baby,” as if it was a plague or an infestation.)
The song opens with a mother at her son’s tombstone (the son likely killed in a war, having died “to save the slogan”), with “stone love” suggesting both a resolute, enduring love and a lifeless emotion. The priest kneels at the altar in bliss and in blindness. The teenagers, who are so besotted they believe they’re the first to ever fall in love, are just the puppets of instinct (“idiot love will spark the fusion”).
Blessed with a fine melody and layered with harmonies and, after the second verse, Bowie’s alto saxophone, the track gets unsettled by odd time signatures in the verse—it’s either in 7/4 time or it moves to 2/4 time on every fourth bar (the sheet music says the latter)—while Bowie again pairs major and minor chords (G to E minor and B minor, the same as in “Ziggy Stardust”).
The track begins with Woody Woodmansey’s drum pattern (a contrast to the slower, ominous beat of “Five Years,” sequenced before it), supplemented by bongos and shakers, then by Bowie’s acoustic guitar strumming and Trevor Bolder’s five-note bassline. Bowie’s vocal parallels the arrangement in part, starting as just a sung whole note (“stone”), then two quarter notes in the next bar, then six notes in the third, etc. Mick Ronson keeps to the background until the chorus. He and Bowie each take a solo verse: Bowie gives a passable alto sax solo, Ronson mainly keeps to the vocal melody.
Recorded 12 November 1971. Played in a few 1973 shows, a fixture of the 1978 tour, a rarity of the 1983 “Serious Moonlight” tour. It was the B-side to a re-issue of “All the Madmen,” and the Stage version was released as a single in Japan. Mick Ronson’s 1975 country-ska remake, retitled “Stone Love,” was later included on reissues of Play Don’t Worry.
Soul Love (live, 1973).
Soul Love (live, 1978).
Soul Love (rehearsal, 1983).
I was in love once, maybe, and it was an awful experience. It rotted me, drained me, and it was a disease. Hateful thing, it was.
David Bowie, interviewed by Cameron Crowe in Playboy, September 1976.
“Soul Love,” so sweet on its surface, so often interpreted as a picture of “youthful romance” (as per 1001 Greatest Albums) or as a message of universal peace and brotherhood, is rather clinical at heart. Read Full BioSoul Love.
Soul Love (live, 1973).
Soul Love (live, 1978).
Soul Love (rehearsal, 1983).
I was in love once, maybe, and it was an awful experience. It rotted me, drained me, and it was a disease. Hateful thing, it was.
David Bowie, interviewed by Cameron Crowe in Playboy, September 1976.
“Soul Love,” so sweet on its surface, so often interpreted as a picture of “youthful romance” (as per 1001 Greatest Albums) or as a message of universal peace and brotherhood, is rather clinical at heart. Love, whether that of a mother, lover or priest, is shown as being amoral, delusive, pointless and ruinous. (Love is “sweeping over cross and baby,” as if it was a plague or an infestation.)
The song opens with a mother at her son’s tombstone (the son likely killed in a war, having died “to save the slogan”), with “stone love” suggesting both a resolute, enduring love and a lifeless emotion. The priest kneels at the altar in bliss and in blindness. The teenagers, who are so besotted they believe they’re the first to ever fall in love, are just the puppets of instinct (“idiot love will spark the fusion”).
Blessed with a fine melody and layered with harmonies and, after the second verse, Bowie’s alto saxophone, the track gets unsettled by odd time signatures in the verse—it’s either in 7/4 time or it moves to 2/4 time on every fourth bar (the sheet music says the latter)—while Bowie again pairs major and minor chords (G to E minor and B minor, the same as in “Ziggy Stardust”).
The track begins with Woody Woodmansey’s drum pattern (a contrast to the slower, ominous beat of “Five Years,” sequenced before it), supplemented by bongos and shakers, then by Bowie’s acoustic guitar strumming and Trevor Bolder’s five-note bassline. Bowie’s vocal parallels the arrangement in part, starting as just a sung whole note (“stone”), then two quarter notes in the next bar, then six notes in the third, etc. Mick Ronson keeps to the background until the chorus. He and Bowie each take a solo verse: Bowie gives a passable alto sax solo, Ronson mainly keeps to the vocal melody.
Recorded 12 November 1971. Played in a few 1973 shows, a fixture of the 1978 tour, a rarity of the 1983 “Serious Moonlight” tour. It was the B-side to a re-issue of “All the Madmen,” and the Stage version was released as a single in Japan. Mick Ronson’s 1975 country-ska remake, retitled “Stone Love,” was later included on reissues of Play Don’t Worry.
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on Diamond Dogs
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