The Deram Anthology 1966 - 1968

For the most part, however, it's like Listen With Mother hosted by Edgar Allen Poe. Beneath the rinky-dink arrangements are songs about a lonely bombardier who befriends two children and is run out of town as a suspected paedophile; a woman who drags up as a man to join the army; and a future in which the government has enforced mass abortion, suicide and sterilisation to stop the population explosion!

There's also some poignant songs that yearn for an idyllic childhood that never was - "Come And Buy My Toys" and the brilliant "There Is A Happy Land" (a forerunner of "After All" on MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD).

Bowie's continual interest in Buddhism ("Quicksand", "Seven Years In Tibet") makes its first appearance here with "Silly Boy Blue".

The stand out song is "Please Mr Gravedigger",a spoken word monologue about a gravedigger who is digging a grave for the child-murderer he is contemplating killing! The only backing is a FX tape of a storm, DB stomping on a tray full of gravel, and a very convincing 'fake sneeze' ("Scuse me"). Outstanding, wierd and his first 'acting' role.

You can have fun spotting ideas and themes that Bowie has recycled on later occasions. Never one to waste an idea, the bass riff in the middle of "Join The Gang" (itself ripped off from "Gimme Some Lovin'") reappeared on "Strangers When We Meet", thirty years later; and "Ching A Ling"s melody was reworked as the synthesiser part on "Saviour Machine" from THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD.

Oh, and "The Laughing Gnome" is on there too. The Bowie song no one will admit to liking, but we all secretly know all the words!

This album will make you wonder where David would be know if he had never discovered The Velvet Underground, Neitzsche and the influences that shaped his 1970s work. One thing's for sure, I'd rather listen to this CD than "Tonight" any day!

Tracks like Maid Of Bond Street, London Boys and Join The Gang deal with Bowie's youth in swinging London, whilst She's Got My Medals examines gender roles. The ominous We Are Hungry Men depicts a totalitarian nightmare where population control is carried out by cannibalism, amongst other things. Then there's Please Mr Gravedigger, about infanticide, and Little Bombardier, about child abuse. Bowie also explores the innocence of childhood in songs like This Is A Happy Land, Uncle Arthur and Come And Buy My Toys. Let Me Sleep Beside You and When Live My Dream are songs of yearning, quiet moving and memorable.

In a way, Bowie returned to this style of song on 1973's futuristic cabaret Aladdin Sane, albeit with more contemporary instruments and arrangements. That was also the year in which the re-released Laughing Gnome made the top ten in the UK. The music is remarkable and unusual but could find no audience in the psychedelic late sixties when rock legends were made. Those Bowie fans that have assimilated all his transformations down the years might find this an interesting collection, but it often still sounds weird. How great that Bowie persevered to make some of the most compelling music of the 1970s and 1980s. The roots of his genius are certainly evident here.