Blackstar

I did not want to go to the last day of my Intro to Arranging class. I would much rather study for my AG final. However, being the goody two-shoes I am, I dragged my lazy butt there. I walked in a couple minutes late and plopped myself into my usual spot in the back of the classroom, where I could slouch down in my seat and lean my head against the wall.

For this last class meeting, we had a guest speaker: Evan Ziporyn. I've met this guy before: he's a (absolutely incredible) bass clarinetist, and he's played a piece with the MITWE clarinets last year. Back then, I was given the solo clarinet part ("Angeline, you are to be the Anat Cohen") and had to do improv with him. I am terrible at improv. I don't think I ever will be good at it. The performance went okay. But that's besides the point.

Ziporyn hadn't began his presentation yet. He was talking to another student about something that I don't recall because I didn't have any context. At ten after, he formally introduced himself to everyone, and explained that he would be talking about his arrangement of David Bowie's album Blackstar for cello and small orchestra.

"Bowie had released this a few days before his death," he explained so quietly I could barely hear from the back of the room. "I remember first listening to it and being completely immersed in the soundscape. I decided that I wanted to replicate that feeling with an arrangement. But first, let me play you the song." And so he navigated over to YouTube and showed us the first couple minutes of the title track "Blackstar."

Now, it's an odd music video. I remember watching through half-closed eyes the dimly-lit projector screen. Curved stalagmites framed a black star (it looks more like a solar eclipse), and on the ground lay a dead astronaut. It then cuts to Bowie with bandages covering his face, black buttons replacing his eyes. He sings the lyrics as shirtless men bounced in the background, spasm-like.

I raised an eyebrow. Alright bro, this is some cheesy artsy bullshit. I've been to enough modern art museums and so I was used to this kind of thing. Still, it made me a little bit uncomfortable.

Ziporyn paused the video and then played for us a recording of his arrangement: Bowie Cello Symphonic: Blackstar. We followed the music along with the score. I don't remember much about what I thought about it. Some people asked some questions afterwards, and he answered. We went on to listen to another two songs.

I remember the last song we listened to. I think someone asked Ziporyn which song he liked the most. I forget why he said it was his favorite. If you haven't picked up by now, I really wasn't trying to pay attention to this lecture. But I did remember that each line of the verse was followed by echoes (it had a lot of reverb, as they say). I asked a question about how this effect was reproduced in the cello symphony, and Ziporyn explained some music tech stuff that I don't really get.

The name of that song was "Girl Loves Me." I only know it because I've listened to the album too many times at this point.

After the lecture was over, I had about a half hour to kill. The classroom was up the stairs from the math lounge, and so I went there and laid on the couch. I was scrolling for a bit when my friend walked in. I put down my phone and said hi. We made some small talk about the AG final, and I figured I should work on it. I pulled out my computer and stared at my notes. I was too sleepy to work on it, so I sheepishly put my computer away.

Instead, I opened Spotify and started playing the album, closing my eyes and lying on the coach. And for the next couple days too, I felt this inexplicable itch for Blackstar. I listened to it on repeat while I worked through fibered products and quasicoherent sheaves and so, so many locally finite-type schemes over a field (not that all this studying helped me on the final anyways :/ ).

One night, I caught one of my friend and suitemate in our bathroom. I asked him how finals was treating him. It became a discussion of burnout and motivation. I listened to him explain his frustrations with himself. As I thought of a response, I hummed the Eb-Db-C that is the chorus of "Girl Loves Me." The part where he says "girl loves me."

I agree with Evan. This is also my favorite track of the album. Something about these three note ascending/descending progressions that has me in a death grip. For that class, I chose to arrange Love Me Knife by IrohaRingo for my final project. The song stays on C minor chord with the exception of the chorus, which has the progression VI-VII-i on repeat. That resolution to i is so satisfying, and it just makes me so happy every time I listen to it. Something about "Girl Loves Me" does the same, I suppose.

Apart from this, I think the fact that I like "Girl Loves Me" says something pretty interesting about me. I'm the kind of person who doesn't know the lyrics to songs that they've played on repeat. I just don't pay attention to them. In fact, I think that knowing what the words are takes away from the musical experience most of the time. I like how fuzzy my understanding of the words are. It's like verbalizing your dream. Once you tell someone about it, it just doesn't seem as cool as it felt in the moment.

That is not to say that I don't know any of the lyrics. I mean, I know that the words of the chorus is "Girl Loves Me." I also vaguely know that the end of some of the lines are days of the week. I just didn't know that most of the song is not even normal English. As I was writing this post, I looked up the song and read the Wikipedia article.

"Girl Loves Me" is notable for its usage of Polari and Nadsat in its lyrics, the latter of which is a fictional slang created by Anthony Burgess which was used very often in his 1962 novel [A Clockwork Orange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AClockworkOrange(novel) "A Clockwork Orange (novel)")_.

Oh. I remember A Clockwork Orange. It was a very strange film.

But I very much support not using actual words. I mean, we're able to get such nice internal rhyme and rhythm. You can't lie "Real bad dizzy snatch making all the omies mad" is magnificent. Oh and I love the way he says "red rot." ekalrjkljfklajr If you're just reading this, please just listen to the song. I cannot convey the feeling of the song with just words. God I love this song.

It's just so odd. I wasn't expecting to like this, I wasn't expecting to like this entire album as much as I do. It's a jazz-rock album. I don't listen to rock. I mean, I listen to rock-adjacent (I enjoy emo: My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, IDK How), but never really rock. I find most rock songs eh, and this is what I would say about most of Bowie's music. I don't listen to jazz either. I mean, there are some songs that I like (shoutout Cuphead soundtrack), but in general, I'm not a fan. I guess I will make the concession that I do like experimental music. But my point is that it combines genres that I don't really like, and here I am loving it.

It's honestly so refreshing to listen to a whole album, rather than individual songs. Most of the Vocaloid songs I listen to are singles, and so I don't get to experience the cohesion of an entire album. And even more on top of that, there aren't that many albums where I genuinely enjoy every song in the album (Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and MANIA are the other two, but I've never listened to the album straight through so I guess I haven't really experienced the album wholly).

I bring this up because I really like the transition from "Dollar Days" to "I Can't Give Everything Away." It's so seamless that for the first couple times I was listening to the album, I couldn't tell apart the difference between those two songs. Especially because this album features some long songs ("Blackstar" is almost 10 minutes), they kind of blur together into one song. I just know them as the songs that come after "Girl Loves Me."

"Dollar Days" is a mournful song. Bowie just sounds so mournful singing. The last minute or so of "Dollar Days" is a slow fade out. The saxophone stops playing about 30 seconds from the end. The electric guitars slowly distort as a 8-bit drumset starts kicking in. And suddenly, we're in the more retro-sounding, more upbeat "I Can't Give Everything." The transition is so masterful. I mean, the whole second half of the album, and how they just slide into each other, is such an experience.

This really is the only album that I would recommend. I didn't understand that entire albums could be an experience. Holy shit was this album an experience.

Thank you, Bowie, for your work. Rest in peace.

Go listen to Blackstar.