The song is about fascism--please, accept no other explanation. It was on Bowie's mind; he'd been notoriously fascinated with the Nazis, not to mention European history, and was living in Berlin when he wrote and recorded this song. The sons described in the verses are incapable of reflection. They make war from time to time, Bowie tells us, and "they never die/Just go to sleep one day." A sleeping beast.
Their being from the "silent age" would be reference to the silent-film era, which preceded the era of fascism in Germany (which isn't the same thing as causing it, needles to say). In the chorus, Bowie reaches for a world of sound--his symbolic alternative to fascism.
The song is about fascism--please, accept no other explanation. It was on Bowie's mind; he'd been notoriously fascinated with the Nazis, not to mention European history, and was living in Berlin when he wrote and recorded this song. The sons described in the verses are incapable of reflection. They make war from time to time, Bowie tells us, and "they never die/Just go to sleep one day." A sleeping beast.
Their being from the "silent age" would be reference to the silent-film era, which preceded the era of fascism in Germany (which isn't the same thing as causing it, needles to say). In the chorus, Bowie reaches for a world of sound--his symbolic alternative to fascism.