Beth Lake is a published playwright and book critic for publications such as Write Magazine, PRISM international, Atlantic Books Today, and The Furious Gazelle. Her music obsession began at the age of four when the crazed voice of Wolfman Jack on the American Graffiti soundtrack came barrelling out of the speakers on her family’s 8-Track/record player. Those musicians nearest and dearest to her include David Bowie, Tom Waits, Talking Heads, David Byrne (solo), James Taylor, Patti Smith, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Iggy Pop. When she is not editing her fiction manuscript or working for The Journal of David Foster Wallace Studies, she can be found digging through the stacks at Select Sounds, her favorite record store in Bedford, Nova Scotia.
Together, “Mother” and “Tryin’ To Get To Heaven” complete each other and stand as new reminders of the incredible artist we lost five years ago. But more importantly, the songs renew our gratitude that he was here with us.
Earlier generations had journalists such as Hunter S. Thompson and Norman Mailer and poets like Charles Bukowski to help them voice their anger at the frustrations of life. At the end of a year like 2020, Iggy Pop’s cathartic wail of “Covid-19!” is the poetry we all needed to hear.
Amidst a pandemic, political unrest, and economic distress, Diamond Dogs offers a new translation to a listener in 2020. David Bowie infused his talent for changing personas directly into the album itself as though he knew something that we did not. It is almost if he knew this was coming.