Hi. I don't feel many truly understand Bowie's song, Rock 'N Roll Suicide. They feel it's about the suicide of a rock and roller. This is understandable. However, the song is not about the suicide of a rock and roller. This song is conveying the theme that Rock and Roll IS a form of suicide. What do I mean?

The key to this song is in these lines:

You're too young to choose it/
too old to lose it....

Bowie is saying the life of rock and roll comes from both nature and nurture. Rock stars are born and the culture they are born into addicts them to this life. It was not their choice to become rock stars, they could not help it. Once they became rock and rollers, they could not kick the lifestyle. Rock and roll to them is both an inherent disease and an addiction.

Consider Bowie himself, for example. What was he going to do in life? Become a doctor? A lawyer? A soldier? No, he was born a rock and roll star. He had the face, the body, the voice and the uncanny song writing talent. He really had no choice but to follow this path; it was thrust upon him. The sadness of this life is beyond control. He was a suicide from birth.

Consider Hendrix, Brian Jones, Syd Barrett, and Jim Morrison. What were they to do but be rock stars?

Rock and roll to some is exactly like the image of cigarettes introduced in the opening verse. It is something you can't put down. It is something you aree naturally drawn to. Consequently, like the hero of this song, you "have lived too long" at 25 and end up "stumbling across the road," dodging cars, and avoiding the sunlight and food that would nourish the normal person.

Born to rock and roll, the hapless victim is steeped in the life that follows it. It is a life of hard drugs, cigarettes, low self-esteem, loneliness, isolation and confusion.

Bowie tries to remind the rock and roller he is "wonderful" despite the nightmarish and garish sights, despite the gutters, and the hard person he has become. Nonetheless, he is a "suicide" from birth and there really is no hope.

Shut it!

actually one of your more readable "thesis" ... damn it i almost agree with you (oh the shame !).