He had recently gone through a half-chosen stint in a psychiatric ward to avoid harder time and to straighten out a little. Pop reminisces with mixed feelings about how he and his band failed to live up to their promise, the blame being focused squarely on themselves: "I remember how they used to stare at the ground/They looked as if they put the whole world down/The first time I saw the dum dum boys I was fascinated/They just stood in front of the old drug store I was most impressed/No one else was impressed.Where are you now my dum dum boys/Are you alive or dead/Have you left me the last of the dum dum daze/Then the sun goes down/And the boys broke down." But Pop, while missing his band's support - "Where are you now when I need your noise?" - clearly has moved on, both in his music and in his life, as he testifies on these two masterful albums. The music is a stew of semi-electronic Eno-influenced art rock and heavy soul and R&B. And indeed, this record was recorded in the same era and location, and uses many of the same musicians as Bowie's record.
At the end of these lines, the band joins in with a couple of heavily distorted, modulating guitars, a delayed drumbeat, electric piano, and bass guitar, the musical textures so influenced by the album's co-writer and producer, David Bowie, that the song sounds like it is from one of Bowie's Berlin-period records like Heroes.
On "Dum Dum Boys," he recites - in a mock conversation - a list of casualties littering his past, a list consisting of ex-Stooges, his legendary proto-punk band (parentheses mine): "What happened to Zeke? (Zettner)/He's dead on Jones, man/How about Dave? (Alexander)/OD'd on alcohol/Well what's Rock doing?/Oh, he's living with his mother/What about James? (Williamson)/He's gone straight." The dialogue is intimate and convincingly conversational, over a sparse introduction of finger snaps and an electric piano.
I'm a damned man!" And on this album, and the follow-up Lust for Life released in the same year, Pop is shown reaching his artistic peak while simultaneously peeling off less desirable layers of his former self. Sanam ham maana gareeb hain Haaye sanam ham Aji sanam ham maana gareeb hain Nasiba khota sahi, banda chhota sahi Nasiba khota sahi, banda chhota sahi Dil ye khazaana hai pyaar ka Haay allaah soorat aap ki subhan allah Haay allaah soorat aap ki subhan allah Dam dam, diga diga Mausam bhiga bhiga Bin piye main to gira, main to gira, main to gira Haay allaah, soorat aap ki subhaan allaah Haay allaah, soorat aap ki subhaan allaah.In an interview around the time of the 1977 release of his first bona fide solo record, The Idiot, Iggy Pop insisted "I'm not a punk anymore. Teri ada waah waah kya baat hai Haaye, teri ada Are, teri ada waah waah kya baat hai Ankhiyaan jhuki jhuki, baaten ruki ruki Ankhiyaan jhuki jhuki, baaten ruki ruki Dekho koi re aaj lut gaya Haay allaah soorat aap ki subhan allah Haay allaah, soorat aap ki subhaan allaah Dam dam, diga diga Mausam bhiga bhiga Bin piye main to gira, main to gira, main to gira Haay allaah, soorat aap ki subhaan allaah Haay allaah, soorat aap ki subhaan allaah Dam dam, diga diga Mausam bhiga bhiga Dam dam, diga diga Mausam bhiga bhiga Bin piye main to gira, main to gira, main to gira Haay allaah, soorat aap ki subhaan allaah Haay allaah, soorat aap ki subhaan allaah Dam dam, diga diga Mausam bhiga bhiga Bin piye main to gira, main to gira, main to gira Haay allaah, soorat aap ki subhaan allaah Haay allaah, soorat aap ki subhaan allaah