I thoroughly enjoyed your feature
honouring David Bowie’s 60th
birthday in issue 332 and the
opportunity you took to remind
readers what a great album Young
Americans is, even though at age 16 I
did wonder what the hell he was up to!
But I’d like to challenge an oftenrepeated
myth perpetuated in your
track-by-track analysis – that Can You
Hear Me was written for Ava Cherry.
I might have bought into that theory
too, if it were not for one undeniable
giveaway in the lyric – as sung, not as
written. When it was first pointed out
to me in 1981, I rubbished the
suggestion – Bowie would never give
himself away so easily in a song. But I
had to concede, there it was, plain as
day. At the end of the second verse,
after the dramatic, building lines “It’s
harder to fall/Can you hear me call?”,
with one word, Bowie delivers the
most personal, confessional, naked and
vulnerable line he has ever committed
to a record. Instead of leading into the
chorus with “Can you…”, he clearly
intones “Angie…” Gives me
goosebumps every time.
