Time Will Crawl (2018 Remaster) Lyrics - David Bowie

Song Facts:

• Genre: Rock, Art Rock


• Lyricist: David Bowie


• Composers: David Bowie


• Soundtrack: Used in the movie "Challengers"

Artist Info:

David Bowie is one of the most iconic British musicians and actors, working in this industry for over half a century. He was critically acclaimed for his musical innovation, eclecticism, and his theatrical stage presence. His re-inventions of both image and sound resulted in substantive changes in many genres of music. His revolutionary 70s and 80s albums, such as "Ziggy Stardust" and "Heroes," are still a very big influence on today's music. Often, his work is described to be very dealing with themes of alienation, identity, and kind of music. He was known for his unique voice but also for the depth of intellectual thought in songwriting, where he even dug in some very difficult social and existential questions.

Annotations and Meaning:

"Time Will Crawl" by David Bowie, and even more especially the 2018 remastered version, does, in fact, contain another very bitterly sounding human explorative text. In this text, the succession of surreal images is created to be at the same time flowing apocalyptically with time, symbolizing time decay and human efforts that always lead to it.
The line "I've never sailed on a sea, I would not challenge a giant" suggests an anecdote of caution and reticence, probably bashing human beings for not taking on tests larger than life until it is perhaps too late. You can almost picture it: a kind of metaphor for the thoughtless, endless chases that define modern existence, one in which a "top-gun pilot" streaks through a "hole" until he "grew real old."
The haunting effect of the chorus, "Time will crawl, 'til the twenty-first century lose," repeats itself through the song. It underlines the slow, creeping moving of time that seems to intensify while society pushes on through a knotted future, filled with technological and environmental crises. The repetition of the phrase "twenty-first century lose" thus brings home the loss of direction and purpose for humanity as it moves through the new era.

Bowie further adds graphic, disturbing images such as a "black, black stream full of white-eyed fish," and the people who don't mind "the gas" as they "lay down to sleep"—both these bring out a very dark picture of the earth and uncaring or perhaps unobservant society.