Scream Like a Baby

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"Scream Like a Baby" is a song written by David Bowie that appears on the 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). It focusses on a protagonist called Sam who is evidently being held, along with the song's narrator, in a political prison. Though set in the future, the story is related in the past tense, in a fashion Bowie has described as "future nostalgia... A past look at something that hasn't happened yet".[1] Musically the track is noted for its "ultra-modern new wave guitar/synth sound",[1] as well as for Bowie's use of varispeed vocals to illustrate Sam's downward spiral in the prison hospital; according to NME critics Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray, the effect is "as if the narrator of 'All the Madmen' inhabited the world of '1984'".[2]

The song was originally written in 1973, with different lyrics, as "I Am a Laser" for The Astronettes (Ava Cherry, Geoffrey MacCormack and Jason Guess).[3] Bowie worked on an album for the group but it was eventually dropped, finally surfacing in 1995 as the Ava Cherry album People from Bad Homes; "I Am a Laser" was one of the tracks.

[edit] Other releases

  • It was released as the B-side of the single "Fashion" in October 1980.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Nicholas Pegg (2000). The Complete David Bowie: p.181
  2. ^ Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: p.113
  3. ^ David Buckley (1999). Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story: p.207
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