Talk:Five Years (David Bowie song)

Untitled
The song was written in 1972, but played live in 1971? Perhaps "released in 1972" is more accurate? Bill 21:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Inspiration of song
in citing the origin story for this song, I used a book written by David Buckley. While there is not enough information to be certain, I am suggesting thay David Buckley of wikipedia article and the author David Buckley are not the same person, despite the former being a composer. The book jacket here makes no mention of musical composition, and cites his work primarily as pop based musical biographies. K3vin (talk) 05:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Please, let's stop citing allmusic.com
Not for the first time, I say allmusic.com isn't a reliable source. Everything they write is poor-to-mediocre, just a bunch of adjectives and comparisons. Laziness is their worst sin. They cannot be relied upon. We should not merely cease citing allmusic.com; we should actively SHUN it. Here is just another example of why:

"[Bowie's] singing is among his best performances, in particular the line 'I never thought there'd be so many people,' delivered in the elegant demi-croon he would later make more prominent."

That isn't a typo, and it is not a misheard lyric. That is fucking LAZY. He didn't bother to listen to the song immediately before writing the article, and didn't even make the half-assed effort of Googling the lyrics. The line is, of course, "Never thought I'd need so many people". If you misheard it, you might think it was "Never thought I'd meet so many people", but no way on Earth do you mishear it as "Never thought there'd be so many people". That doesn't happen.

The guy likes the song and gets the general idea. That's all there is to it: Those are his "qualifications". He didn't believe he needed to hear it again. The philosophy behind allmusic.com is diametrically opposed to Wikipedia's!

I could point to several sentences or phrases that are just mediocre or stupid ("that makes excellent sense"; "make more prominent" instead of simply "make prominent"), but the more important thing is that they get their facts wrong consistently, and they lower the standards of writing on the Internet. Yet Wikipedia cites allmusic.com A LOT, when we shouldn't cite them AT ALL. We should ban them as an unreliable source, and scour our articles clean of all citations to them. If I sound unnecessarily venomous, please understand that they have a history of unreliability and mediocrity, and I have said so several times on various Talk pages. I really wish some other people would help me get this ball rolling. Let's have nothing to do with them.

←Ben Culture (talk) 05:22, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Music theory correction?
The article currently states: Doggett believes this was not a coincidence, as "Five Years" uses a standard 1-6-4-5 song structure

Musicians, is that right? Song is key of G, and the chords are G - em - A - C which is 1-6-2-4 progression with a major 2. The development chords similarly don't match Doggett's description. And the song structure is something like like A - B - A - A which also doesn't match.

Is there a more proper way to describe the song, or did I misunderstand Doggett's assertion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:DAC0:13B0:916A:EF75:BCA:3415 (talk) 06:55, 8 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Absolutely right. This article should be updated. Also misquotes lyrics 68.189.168.48 (talk) 12:59, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Removed that whole Doggett bit as it's editorialized. – zmbro (talk) (cont) 15:38, 12 June 2023 (UTC)