2nd
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Yassassin: David Bowie (1979)
I suspect that I’m allergic to expectorants. Any time that I’ve taken cough syrup, my muscles tense up. But really. Especially when I yawn – they practically freeze. It sounds strange, but it’s an unnerving and wholly unpleasant druggy feeling. I’m also told that, under the influence of cough syrup, I violently thrash around in my sleep. I believe it! I invariably wake up feeling like I’ve been out carousing all night. Needless to say, when I come down with a fit of coughs now, rather than reach for a bottle of Robitussin, I simply cough away.
I mention this because there’s something about this song that reminds me of the way cough syrups makes me feel. That keyboard sounds exactly how my muscles feel – wound up impossibly tight, yet shaky, quivery. And then there’s the choppy rhythm, the woozy strings, Bowie’s spastic delivery, the overall thin, disorienting sound – it’s a direct translation of the over-the-counter malaise I experience induced by two tablespoons of the red stuff.
Unfortunately, unlike the syrup, “Yassassin” fails to suppress my coughs.
