Big Brother (David Bowie Song)
"Big Brother" is a song written by David Bowie in 1973 and intended for his never-produced musical based on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. In 1974 it was released on the album Diamond Dogs. It segued into the final track on the record, "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family".
Lyrically, the song reflects the ending of Nineteen Eighty-Four, where Winston Smith's brainwashing is complete, and he loves Big Brother. This was described by Bowie biographer David Buckley as "a frightening paean to the Super God", while Nicholas Pegg considered that Bowie was showing how "the glamour of dictatorships is balanced with the banality".
The opening trumpet line, played on a Chamberlin, has been compared to Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain. The melody in the chorus was echoed in Bowie's own "Shining Star (Makin' My Love)" from Never Let Me Down (1987).
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