366 Songs 241: Oh! You Pretty Things

Another of those songs that sounds to me like some kind of pop perfection, “Oh! You Pretty Things” is about way that vocals play off each other in the chorus; it was the first thing that caught my attention, the call-and-response, the swinging of the lead against the sturdiness of the backing vocals (The way that “Driving your mommas and papas” builds to support the landing of Bowie’s swoop, mirroring the fall of their earlier “Oh, you pretty things” as it climbs down). Even before my attention was sworn by the words being sung (“Homo sapiens have outgrown their use,” indeed) or the piano instrumentation that collapses into full band for the chorus. There’s a lovely balance of delicateness and swagger in this song that I find irresistible, but even cover versions that pretty significantly change the sound of the song make me swoon more than slightly: