Description
After years of listening to this song, and one of the first Bowie singles I was aware of as a child, it was Chris O’Leary’s Pushing Ahead of the Dame that really hammered home how resonant Ashes to Ashes is. And of course, it takes from one his favourite songs (well yes, and mine) Inchworm. Read the piece! The video effects which were novel at the time have aged and yet remain in keeping with the song.
A friend at school had a dad that was a cameraman for the Bill. He would obsess about the framing of shots whenever we watched the TV (“never enough space above the head!”). This also spilled into apoplexy when he saw the black line that often appeared, clinging to the silhouettes when filmed by the nascent video camera technology.
For example, above is Christopher Reeve talking to Nick Owen February 1984 on TV AM and just look at the black lines around their shoulders. Just look.
Anyway, I have emphasised black lines. Black Lines, Don’t Do It.
