Sound And Vision
It’s always so heartbreaking reading about how this song came to be, but at the same time, it’s fascinating.
For me, this song hits too close to home. When I first listened to it, I was instantly hypnotized by the guitar riff. All the instruments and vocals create a harmony that synchronizes with my soul.
This song has been there since my coming of age era. I don’t drink or do drugs, but I deeply understand the feeling of being isolated in a room, a room that could be physical or just within my own mind. This song describes exactly how depression feels to me: being in a state where you’re withdrawing into yourself and waiting, yearning for a breakthrough.
I’ve been in this state almost all my life, repeating the cycle. Being exhausted, wanting to end it all. Feeling so much and nothing at the same time, this fucking numbness. But the music is there, bringing a sort of hope that maybe, someday, things will be better.
But even if things don’t get better, sometimes there are ‘gifts’ that still keep me here to enjoy them.
A very sad song for me is ‘Sound And Vision’. I was trying very hard to drag myself out of an awful period of my life. I was locked in a room in Berlin telling myself I was going to straighten up and not do drugs anymore. I was never going to drink again. Only some of it proved to be the case. It was the first time I knew I was killing myself and time to do something about my physical condition. I had a few scares and thought, ‘Well, I got through that by the skin of my teeth.’ Serious haemorrhaging from the nose, passing out… awful stuff.
— David Bowie. Q magazine, October 2003.
That was an ultimate retreat song; actually, the first thing that I wrote with Brian in mind when we were working at the Château. It was just the idea of getting out of America, that depressing era I was going through. I was going through dreadful times. It was wanting to be put in a little cold room with omnipotent blue on the walls and blinds on the windows.
— David Bowie. Melody Maker, 18 February 1978.