Not Going Down Without a Fight," from his album The Dark Side of the Moon. I'm not trying to knock the man. But that, my friends, is some of the most mind-numbing, spirit-crushingly pretentious music I have ever heard in my life. Advertisement: That the album opens with an interminable and largely irrelevant piano solo would indicate that Bowie was more interested in showing off his musical chops than in composing great rock songs. It's all about texture, mood, "churning," blah blah blah. The last seven words in that description -- "in the night" -- also capture what's going on in the album's lyrics. The album is larded with references to the moon and all the sinister overtones that imply. Even the more obvious stuff is rendered pretentiously, as in "sounds like a nightmare in an android junkyard." Or it's just lame like "Laughing Gnome," which sounds like an inappropriately clever title for a Muppet Babies character. But perhaps what is most interesting about the album is how it lays bare the inner demons that must have driven Bowie to work so hard on it. It's kind of a long song about dying. It opens with Bowie contemplating "a big star in the making," which leads him to think about "a lifetime of wasted chances." And then it ends with the same sentiments being expressed by his "zombie," as he was called in the lyrics. Advertisement: I don't want to over-intellectualize the lyricism too much. Bowie's music has always been about emotion, and this album is no exception. The album is certainly good and well-made, but its self-aggrandizing pretentiousness reminds me a lot of other pretentious stuff like the Monkees' "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You," from their third album, "Head." That is pretentious. But it's so damn good, too. (The same can be said for "Killing Me Softly With His Song," which I just recently rediscovered on my CD.) The best way to assess the song's value is by asking yourself, "If you didn't know it was a David Bowie song, would you be able to identify it?" If the answer is no, then I think you can safely say that this is an excellent song, and by that same token, if the answer is yes, it's a mediocre song. Ultimately, this song has a place in my collection because of the way it was recorded, and for the same reason. A lesser-known Bowie song that I recently re-discovered is called "After All." In this song he talks about coming back to the world and the way that he had grown accustomed to seeing it, and after doing that, he wonders "how are you?" Advertisement: I love how he sings that part. I love it because it gives a voice to his feelings about how he perceives the world, and it helps frame his whole album for me. This is the way that I would have written the song. But of course, David Bowie wrote it, and you just have to admire how well he did it. So, to Mr. Bowie: Thanks, man, for the tune. I mean, I know I'm gonna have to listen to it again now. I'll try to give it a listen with an open mind this time around. Because, you see, I used to think of you as someone who just wrote the songs. Now I'm gonna have to give you some respect, in this life that I'm living right now. I can't be so rude as to pass this up on you. Because after all, that's what you did for us. You sang it. And you made it so hot. And while it's all still a bit of a mystery, that's OK. It doesn't matter why, and I don't care why. I just have to respect what it is, I guess. So I will just have to assume that what you are telling me to believe and what I'm being told by you are in fact both true. And the best part? The words come straight from a place inside me where I can't say that I would have ever had any idea what to say, and yet, somehow, here it is. It came from the heart, and I think it can come from mine, too. And we don't have to believe in anything we can't prove. Right? Advertisement: So, what do you think of my thoughts on the song? Please tell me in the comments. Also on The Huffington Post: