David Bowie breaks silence with 42 words on ‘The Next Day’

Returned icon shares provocative list of words with US author

David Bowie has remained tight-lipped throughout his grand return this year, refusing to grant interviews or comment on his comeback album ‘The Next Day’.

Yet American novelist Ricky Moody, best known for 1994 novel The Ice Storm and here writing for literary website The Rumpus, has persuaded Bowie to comment – in a manner – on his album, after asking for a “work flow diagram” explaining his creative approach.

Moody writes: “…I wanted to think about [the album] in light of what he was thinking about it, I wanted to understand the lexicon of ‘The Next Day’, and so I simply asked if he would provide this list of words about his album, assuming, like everyone else waving madly trying to get his attention, that there was not a chance in hell that I would get this list, because who the fuck am I, some novelist killing time writing occasionally about music, and yet astonishingly the list appeared, and it appeared without further comment, which is really excellent, and exactly in the spirit of this album, and the list is far better than I could ever have hoped, and it’s exactly like Bowie, at least in my understanding of him, impulsive, intuitive, haunted, astringent, and incredibly ambitious in the matter of the arts…”

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Bowie recorded a new version of Tin Machine’s ‘I Can’t Read’ for the 1997 movie adaptation of Moody’s The Ice Storm.

The full list of words Bowie sent to Moody is as follows:

Effigies
Indulgences
Anarchist
Violence
Chthonic
Intimidation
Vampyric
Pantheon
Succubus
Hostage
Transference
Identity
Mauer
Interface
Flitting
Isolation
Revenge
Osmosis
Crusade
Tyrant
Domination
Indifference
Miasma
Pressgang
Displaced
Flight
Resettlement
Funereal
Glide
Trace
Balkan
Burial
Reverse
Manipulate
Origin
Text
Traitor
Urban
Comeuppance
Tragic
Nerve
Mystification

Meanwhile, Bowie was recently spotted wearing long brown religious robes alongside actor Gary Oldman on set for the video for ‘The Next Day’, which will be the third single from the same name.

NME‘s special collectors’ magazine on David Bowie is out now and includes the complete Bowie story, iconic and rare photographs, every era and character analysed, plus classic NME interviews with Bowie himself.

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