David Bowie doesn't do interviews, does do word association

The star has finally broken his silence on his new record by giving an interview to a literary journal in the form of 42 one-word responses.

David Bowie has given his first interview on the topic of his wonderful recent album ‘The Next Day’ in the form of a list of 42 words, or a “work flow diagram”.

Speaking to American author Rick Moody for literary journal The Rumpus, the singer provided the list of words below to shed light on the mindset behind the record; there’s a great deal of bodily and mortal imagery in there, what with “chthonic”, “osmosis”, “funereal”, “tragic” and “burial”, but on the bright side, there’s also “flight”, “glide” and “indifference” suggesting that he’s somewhat at peace with these ideas.

In the flabbergasted words of Rick Moody, “there is only the work now, and the silence is part of the work, the work is otherwise complete, the way it is complete with Thomas Pynchon, and the way it was with J. D. Salinger, but, that said…I persuaded Bowie, somehow, to give me a sort of a work flow diagram for ‘The Next Day’, because I wanted to think about it in light of what he was thinking about it, I wanted to understand the lexicon of ‘The Next Day’, and so I simply asked if he would provide this list of words about his album, assuming, like everyone else waving madly trying to get his attention, that there was not a chance in hell that I would get this list, because who the fuck am I, some novelist killing time writing occasionally about music, and yet astonishingly the list appeared, and it appeared without further comment, which is really excellent”.

Read the full list of Bowie’s words below.

“Effigies

Indulgences

Anarchist

Violence

Chthonic

Intimidation

Vampyric

Pantheon

Succubus

Hostage

Transference