In the very eerie song Supermen, David Bowie sings "man would tear his brother's flesh - a chance to die to turn to mold."

In this song the sanctions, taboos, and protective measures imposed by humans to ward off the dangerous and mysterious forces of the Super-Human or Super-Natural no longer apply.

The Supermen have both the desire and the power to desecrate life, to defile what is holy.

They have been consigned to Un-Destruction by the Curse of Immortality.

With profound and penetrating lyrics and a ghostly voice, Bowie communicates both the "Contamination" of Mortality and the "Condemnation" of an Unending Existence.

The Song is very Catching!

The Supermen, like gods, are exempt from Death but they are not free or released from the debts or obligations of their fates.

Like the Hallowed Space Boy, their Custody calls and what appears to be holy is hollow.

Like the immortality of fame (I am with name/you still leave a stain), the supergods' accursed fates reveal unfilled spaces and unfulfillable promises.

Their destinies betray the vanity and sham of Flesh not subject to Decay.

The word "contaminate" is akin to "Contagio" from the latin "contingere" which means to have contact with, to befall, to happen especially as if by fate.

Contamination, the Befouling of what could or should have been kept pure or held sacred is only rarely perceived as a "Befalling" - a "Happening" subject to Chance with it's Unforeseen Causes and Unseen Effects.

In the song Supermen, Bowie invokes that Happening and describes a "loveless island" inhabited by the undead.

The immortals are unassailable, inviolable.

For them there is no rotting tissue, no reeking flesh.

Erosion and Eros, Death and Life have merged and become one.

The once desirable goal of Immortality has become unimaginably terrible.

The Prospect of Oblivion for the supergods is forever out of their reach.

Life has become a hex and death eternally censored!

By Nevada Kerr
April 27th, 2001.

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