Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud

In this track, Bowie goes back to assuming the role of a third-person storyteller, something that was quite prevalent in his earlier work, but would become scarce from now on. The production, too, reminds us somewhat of his earlier stuff, in going away from rock into more elaborate orchestrations. But it is like nothing he ever did before, a symphonic sound that reacts and changes according to his words, dramatizing the story and giving it the resonance of a mythic tragedy. Carried on the wings of the orchestra, Bowie delivers his epic piece, putting his dramatic vocal into full effect, and placing us straight in the midst of the events.

Solemn faced
The village settles down
Undetected by the stars
And the hangman plays the mandolin before he goes to sleep
And the last thing on his mind
Is the Wild Eyed Boy imprisoned
'Neath the covered wooden shaft
Folds the rope into its bag
Blows his pipe of smolders
Blankets smoke into the room
And the day will end for some
As the night begins for one

Straightway, Bowie puts us in a far away, secluded location: a village so remote that even the stars can't detect it. But the story he tells is universal, and it is the story of many of his early records: the monstrosity of conformed society, in its dealing with the individual deviant. We hear that a boy is going to be hung, a very disturbing thought, but the village carries on as usual, as if there's nothing out of the ordinary about it. Bowie creates a very mundane picture as he describes the village, ending its day and preparing for sleep. The collective is portrayed as a blind herd, completely oblivious to the sufferings of the individual. Only the storyteller realizes that this end of the day is merely the beginning of a night of torment for the boy, his last night on Earth.

Staring through the message in his eyes
Lies a solitary son
From the mountain called Freecloud
Where the eagle dare not fly

What was the boy's "crime"? Communing with nature. He has climbed up the mountain that no one dared climb, and managed to form some sort of friendship with it, a symbiosis. Thus, he reversed the process of civilization, the process that takes humanity further and further away from nature. This idea of "going back to nature" is a trait of the Modern age, practiced by all sorts of groups, and in the sixties it was picked up by the Hippies. So, we find that we are in the midst of another kind of debate here, a debate that was very topical at the time: not just "the individual vs. the collective", but also "nature vs. civilization". Which side will Bowie take?

And the patience in his sigh
Gives no indication
For the townsmen to decide
So the village Dreadful yawns
Pronouncing gross diversion
As the label for the dog

The townsmen are unable to understand the boy's way of life, and the idea that you can "be friends" with a mountain strikes them as ridiculous and sick. The boy can't explain it to them, since there are no words in our language to transfer this kind of a relationship, so they tag him as a "mad dog", one that should be put to death. But is a human really completely different than a mountain? I believe that the image created earlier of the hangman who "blows his pipe of smolders" is meant to associate him with a volcano, to show that perhaps there is truth in what the boy is claiming. But the people of the village will not give him a chance, as they are too afraid of this subversive message. In their logic, uniting with nature makes him "wild", and "wild" is synonymous with "crazy". That is what they see in his wild eyes.

Oh "It's the madness in his eyes"
As he breaks the night to cry:
"It's really Me
Really You and really Me
It's so hard for us to really be
Really You and really Me
You'll lose me though I'm always really free"

The boy's message is: nature is what we are. It isn't easy to learn to live harmonically with nature, but if we succeed, then we will be true to what we are, and as a result we will be free and happy. But no one in the village heeds his cry, and no one understands the message. Someone else does hear him, though…

And the mountain moved its eyes
To the world of realize
Where the snow had saved a place
For the Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud

Hearing the boy's cry, the mountain wakes up, and realizes that its friend is in trouble. And so, it springs into action…

And the village Dreadful cried
As the rope began to rise
For the smile stayed on the face
Of the Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud
And the women once proud
Clutched the heart of the crowd
As the boulders smashed down from the mountain's hand
And the Magic in the stare
Of the Wild Eyed Boy said
"Stop, Freecloud
They won't think to cut me down"

As the hanging proceeds, the angered mountain erupts, showering the village with boulders. The boy calls for him to stop, telling him it's not the way, but the mountain won't listen…

But the cottages fell
Like a playing card hell
And the tears on the face
Of the Wise Boy
Came tumbling down
To the rumbling ground
And the missionary mystic of peace/love
Stumbled to cry among the clouds
Kicking back the pebbles
From the Freecloud mountain track…

The story ends in tragedy. The boy was a "missionary mystic of peace/love", preaching, like the Hippies, that going back to nature will bring harmony to the human race on Earth. But he now finds out that nature fails us as well, as at the crucial moment, it proves to be irrational and violent, wreaking total destruction and death. Neither civilization nor nature are the way to reach the peace/love unity, as they are both violent at their core. The failed messiah (apparently he did manage to escape) recedes back to his solitude, escaping civilization to go back up the mountain, and all he can do is kick away the pebbles from the track between the mountain and the village, hoping that someday someone else will find a right way to connect them.

Once again, then, the double-edged Bowie-knife cuts through both sides of a debate. Conformed society is wrong, but so are the Hippies. The way to happiness is not to be found in subjugating nature like Western civilization does, and not in going back to nature like the Hippies preach. There has to be another way. But what is that way? For now, Bowie doesn't have an answer.