David Bowie – Memoirs of Madness

Late Night Grooves #150

2025/06/222025/06/17Posted in TunageTagged David Bowie, Late Night Grooves, Tunage2 Comments

WHOT Episode 150 – “Sweet Thing / Candidate / Sweet Thing (Reprise)” by David Bowie
Hosted by Mangus Khan

[Needle down. Soft, dissonant piano creeps in. A slow breath. The mood is already uneasy.]

“One hundred and fifty episodes.

One hundred and fifty nights of ache, sweat, signal, silence.

And we mark it not with triumph, but with transformation.

This is Late Night Grooves.
WHOT—the hottest in the cool.

And I’m Mangus Khan.

Still here.

Tonight’s track?

We’re not just playing a song.

We’re walking through someone else’s mind—with the lights off.

David Bowie – ‘Sweet Thing / Candidate / Sweet Thing (Reprise).’

From Diamond Dogs, 1974.

This isn’t Ziggy.
It’s not The Duke.

This is the man between masks.

The sound of an identity molting.

And it’s unsettling.

Part one—‘Sweet Thing’.

Bowie’s voice is smooth. Seductive. Almost safe.
But there’s a crack in the foundation.

The words don’t line up. The melody drifts sideways.

You feel like you’re standing too close to something that might collapse.

And then it does.

‘Candidate’ slams in.

No warning. No mercy.

Suddenly Bowie isn’t whispering anymore—he’s selling something.

“I’ll make you a deal / Like any other candidate…”

Politics, seduction, self-loathing, power—they all blur.

And that’s the brilliance of it.

He’s showing you what happens when performance and truth fuse so tightly, you forget which is which.

And then—

‘Sweet Thing (Reprise)’.

A return, yes. But not a redemption.

The voice is thinner now.
Broken around the edges.

Like someone who’s finally come down… but doesn’t know what to do with the silence.

And this—this whole suite—it doesn’t resolve.

It dissolves.

Into echo.

Into static.

Into the sound of identity trying to survive itself.

That’s the genius of Bowie.

He never gave you answers.

He gave you mirrors.

And dared you to stand still long enough to see what was actually looking back.

Episode 150.

Not a celebration.

A checkpoint.

For the artists who shapeshift to survive.

For the listeners who know that the groove isn’t always warm.

Sometimes it’s cold. Unforgiving.

But still—necessary.

David Bowie.
Sweet Thing / Candidate / Sweet Thing (Reprise).

This is Late Night Grooves.
WHOT.

And I’m Mangus Khan—

Still lost in the mirror.

Still broadcasting for the brave.

Still here.”

Late Night Grooves #134

2025/01/082025/01/08Posted in TunageTagged 1970s, David Bowie, Late Night Grooves, music, rock10 Comments

I discovered an unexpected musical universe while exploring my mother’s collection of 45 rpm records. Hidden within these vinyl discs were recordings by familiar artists I never knew existed, alongside completely unknown musicians who created remarkable work. I smile at my previous assumption of musical expertise, now humbled by the vastness of what remains unexplored. We often experience music through curated selections – songs deemed worthy by others’ judgment. While these choices frequently merit their status, countless talented artists and their exceptional works remain in obscurity, their songs gradually disappearing from collective memory, heard only through chance encounters with dusty records. It is in this spirit I selected tonight’s track. This was made famous and was covered by Nirvana, and when discussing the track, people are most familiar with Nirvana’s cover.

“The Man Who Sold the World” is a cryptic and evocative song released by David Bowie in November 1970 in the US and April 1971 in the UK as the title track of his third studio album. The song features a distinctive circular guitar riff by Mick Ronson and haunting, phased vocals by Bowie, recorded on the final day of mixing. The song is built around a repeating electric guitar riff with an acoustic guitar underneath, primarily in the key of F. The musical arrangement creates a complex harmony that shifts between different chords, creating a disturbing yet compelling sound structure. The song explores themes of identity crisis, duality, and multiple personalities. Bowie explained that he wrote it while searching for a part of himself, reflecting the feeling of youth trying to discover one’s true identity. The lyrics were partially inspired by the 1899 poem “Antigonish” by William Hughes Mearns.