But there has not been universal support for these moves. Objections from residents combined with Berlin’s gender quota for place names and scandals around Bowie’s private life at the time are providing powerful obstacles. In addition, there is currently a debate ranging around the renaming of streets in the context of decolonisation which is taking up much political bandwidth.
And I thought we were bad in Britain.
Eric Salo
2 years ago
In “Heroes,” Bowie called out the inhumanity of those who perpetuated the Wall – and appealed to us to defeat them:
“And the shame, was on the other side
Oh we can beat them, forever and ever
Then we could be Heroes, just for one day”
The shame on the ‘other side’ was born by a government that confined people like Dietmar Schwietzer and Henri Weise to its borders under pain of death.
Failing to ingrain our culture with contempt for, and the reflex to resist, authorities that oppress their citizens means that shame isn’t confined only to the ‘other side.’
Not only is a Bowie-Straße appropriate in Berlin as an enduring reminder of the wickedness once manifested by the Wall, but it’s also a fitting symbol for every city in every Western democracy.
Nice comment. And I have always imagined the lyric that goes “for nothing will drive them away” to refer to the all-encompassing surveillance state, such that if one were to rebel, one could only do so just for one day.
Allison Barrows
2 years ago
Bowie recovered from his drug addiction living with Iggy Pop?! The man really was superhuman!
What a great piece recognizing the lasting impact of this terrific artist. The world misses Mr. Bowie!
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
I didn’t know the dolphin lyric referred to the escapees swimming across the river.
It would be great to see him honoured by the Germans – and then someone will find his dodgy political pronouncements in the mid-seventies (when he was bouncing around all over the place psychologically) and get him cancelled with the street renamed or his statue torn down. Heyho….
Dustshoe Richinrut
2 years ago
Bowie’s sojourn in West Berlin in 1977 or thereabouts might have been in part a wish to seek new musical inspiration. Bowie had achieved the same thing when he had decamped to Philadelphia in 1975 and came up with the groovy Young Americans album: a pretty amazing accomplishment for the Londoner. I suppose the German Foreign office may have wanted to communicate, with one eye on the Brexit referendum later in 2016, how even a Brit can blend in with the locals in Berlin and still stay British while at the same time embellishing the wider pop scene with a dollop of Teutonic pride and defiance, with one eye on the past, the other on the future. It wasn’t a melting pot but an empathy pot. I don’t make sense now, probably.
Anyway, for all the silly, over-the-top praising of Bowie, it’s amazing you never hear his songs played on the radio. It’s as if he’s only a literary figure like Bob Dylan. Only a style icon, a silent movie star of sorts.
Bowie pitched up in Philadelphia and basically put out stuff that said This Is America. From West Berlin, he was as comfortable putting out stuff that said This Is Not America. “Heroes” did not sell so well at the time, I believe. But it was a well-noted song (and album) all the same, at the time.
I don’t know if artists today can retreat so willingly somewhere off the beaten track and away from the internet. It seems quaint today that people back in the day just wanted shot of their nation’s newspapers. Though nobody said that was detox. To make a major cultural or artistic impact, everybody probably thinks now that that’s what tweeting is for. Even artists. In the old days, before mobile phones and the internet, to make an impact you had to simply come up with the goods. The motivation now, however, has long gone.
Is “Heroes” a Cold War pop song? It’s the best one in my opinion. Elton John came up with Nikita in 1987: and could therefore claim to have had a more direct impact than Bowie in “helping bring the wall down.” But in comparing the two singers, Bowie had the intellect (on this score).
Statues and street names seem to be big countries’ problems, or hang-ups. If Bowie were Danish, or Scottish or Icelandic or Irish, he’d probably have long had his statue up or a square named after him (in those countries).
Yes, the motivation has long gone, now that all art has been politicised. But where is the wry, sardonic à la Bowie take on things? Where is the entertainment in it? The relief for the listener?
Eddie Johnson
2 years ago
What a splendid tribute to a great artist, whose death affected me probably more than any other public figure in recent years. Much appreciated.
Recently I found a number of his Berlin concerts on YouTube. Definitely worth watching if only to witness the close relationship he clearly enjoyed with Berliners.
Also makes a pleasant change for a Brit to be held in relatively high esteem in Germany at the current time.
Not a day passes without one of its newspapers, tabloid or broadsheet, left or right, publishing articles, laced with unabashed Schadenfreude, predicting doom and gloom for “deluded” post-Brexit England, (“Die Briten, die spinnen ja”), a country whose people are all apparently still hankering for a return to Empire.
Hopefully this bout of Anglophobia will pass, and we can renew our friendship.
And I thought we were bad in Britain.
In “Heroes,” Bowie called out the inhumanity of those who perpetuated the Wall – and appealed to us to defeat them:
The shame on the ‘other side’ was born by a government that confined people like Dietmar Schwietzer and Henri Weise to its borders under pain of death.
Failing to ingrain our culture with contempt for, and the reflex to resist, authorities that oppress their citizens means that shame isn’t confined only to the ‘other side.’
Not only is a Bowie-Straße appropriate in Berlin as an enduring reminder of the wickedness once manifested by the Wall, but it’s also a fitting symbol for every city in every Western democracy.
Nice comment. And I have always imagined the lyric that goes “for nothing will drive them away” to refer to the all-encompassing surveillance state, such that if one were to rebel, one could only do so just for one day.
Bowie recovered from his drug addiction living with Iggy Pop?! The man really was superhuman!
I suspect Iggy just kept stealing his stash…
What a great piece recognizing the lasting impact of this terrific artist. The world misses Mr. Bowie!
I didn’t know the dolphin lyric referred to the escapees swimming across the river.
It would be great to see him honoured by the Germans – and then someone will find his dodgy political pronouncements in the mid-seventies (when he was bouncing around all over the place psychologically) and get him cancelled with the street renamed or his statue torn down. Heyho….
Bowie’s sojourn in West Berlin in 1977 or thereabouts might have been in part a wish to seek new musical inspiration. Bowie had achieved the same thing when he had decamped to Philadelphia in 1975 and came up with the groovy Young Americans album: a pretty amazing accomplishment for the Londoner. I suppose the German Foreign office may have wanted to communicate, with one eye on the Brexit referendum later in 2016, how even a Brit can blend in with the locals in Berlin and still stay British while at the same time embellishing the wider pop scene with a dollop of Teutonic pride and defiance, with one eye on the past, the other on the future. It wasn’t a melting pot but an empathy pot. I don’t make sense now, probably.
Anyway, for all the silly, over-the-top praising of Bowie, it’s amazing you never hear his songs played on the radio. It’s as if he’s only a literary figure like Bob Dylan. Only a style icon, a silent movie star of sorts.
Bowie pitched up in Philadelphia and basically put out stuff that said This Is America. From West Berlin, he was as comfortable putting out stuff that said This Is Not America. “Heroes” did not sell so well at the time, I believe. But it was a well-noted song (and album) all the same, at the time.
I don’t know if artists today can retreat so willingly somewhere off the beaten track and away from the internet. It seems quaint today that people back in the day just wanted shot of their nation’s newspapers. Though nobody said that was detox. To make a major cultural or artistic impact, everybody probably thinks now that that’s what tweeting is for. Even artists. In the old days, before mobile phones and the internet, to make an impact you had to simply come up with the goods. The motivation now, however, has long gone.
Is “Heroes” a Cold War pop song? It’s the best one in my opinion. Elton John came up with Nikita in 1987: and could therefore claim to have had a more direct impact than Bowie in “helping bring the wall down.” But in comparing the two singers, Bowie had the intellect (on this score).
Statues and street names seem to be big countries’ problems, or hang-ups. If Bowie were Danish, or Scottish or Icelandic or Irish, he’d probably have long had his statue up or a square named after him (in those countries).
Yes, the motivation has long gone, now that all art has been politicised. But where is the wry, sardonic à la Bowie take on things? Where is the entertainment in it? The relief for the listener?
What a splendid tribute to a great artist, whose death affected me probably more than any other public figure in recent years. Much appreciated.
Recently I found a number of his Berlin concerts on YouTube. Definitely worth watching if only to witness the close relationship he clearly enjoyed with Berliners.
Also makes a pleasant change for a Brit to be held in relatively high esteem in Germany at the current time.
Not a day passes without one of its newspapers, tabloid or broadsheet, left or right, publishing articles, laced with unabashed Schadenfreude, predicting doom and gloom for “deluded” post-Brexit England, (“Die Briten, die spinnen ja”), a country whose people are all apparently still hankering for a return to Empire.
Hopefully this bout of Anglophobia will pass, and we can renew our friendship.