A rumination on climate change now, and in reflection

We’ve got five years, sang David Bowie in ‘Five Years’, the opening track on his 1972 Ziggy Stardust album.

News guy wept when he told us, he sings a few lines later, earth was really dying. Earth was really dying. And he gives us an ultimatum: five years. What would it be like to really listen to this song, really listen to it I mean? The earth is REALLY dying. My brain hurts a lot, he keeps singing later on. My brain hurts like a warehouse. If you’re fresh back from the 8th December London demo, perhaps you’ll know what he means.

But this is 1972, in a made-up song. Following the song’s logic, Bowie’s earth must, if we allow ourselves to be slightly insane, and how can we not if we really listen, have died in 1977. The song’s in the past tense. He’s already looking back, back to an earth he mourns, carries with him, a planet in his pocket. I wanted to get back there, he sings. Back where? Well, the earth of course, since it really was dying.

Your face, he sings, your race, surely addressing us, the human race, all of us, really, but in a made-up song, I kiss you, you’re beautiful. If you really thought about this, like the girl my age he mentions, you might also go off your head a little, or maybe just phone your Mum, and I thought of Ma. You’d probably say things to make George Monbiot look like George Bush. But, you know, calm down, drink a milkshake cold and long, it’s already 2007, and that was only a song, wasn’t it?

See Bowie performing the song on You Tube.