Cover art for Heat by David Bowie
Mar. 8, 20131 viewer17.9K views

Heat Lyrics

[Bridge]
But I am a seer, I am a liar
I am a seer, but I am a liar

[Chorus]
My father ran the prison
My father ran the prison

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About

This song bio is unreviewed
Genius Annotation

This song is largely based/inspired by a book, namely Yukio Mishima’s Spring Snow. Here’s a quote from it:

“What’s that? At the top there, what’s damming the water like that?
His mother responded at once. Using her fan to shade her eyes from the bright sunlight that shone through the branches, she peered upward. The landscape artist had painstakingly built up walls of rock on either side of the rim to ensure a graceful fall of water and could never have intended the flow to be diverted so awkwardly at the middle of the crest. A mere rock wedged up there could never have caused such a disruption in the flow.

“I wonder what can be the matter. Something seems to have lodged itself up there,” his mother said to the abbess, openly puzzled.

“Isn’t it a black dog? With its head hanging down”? said Satoko quite plainly.
And the ladies gasped as if they were noticing the dog for the first time."

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

What has Tony Visconti said about "Heat"?
Genius Answer

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Visconti said:

Well that’s the closer of the album and it’s very dramatic. And I’m not quite sure what he’s singing about on it, but it’s a classic Bowie ballad. He’s singing in his handsomest voice, a very deep, very sonorous voice. And I can’t give too much away about it because honestly, I don’t know exactly what it’s about, if it’s about being in a real prison or being imprisoned in your mind. Again, it’s certainly not about him; he’s singing as the voice of somebody.

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