Rock and roll rhetoric: Time takes a cigarette…

“Time takes a cigarette
And puts it in your mouth”

The opening line from David Bowie’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide (from the 1972 Ziggy Stardust album) is a beautiful example of two rhetorical devices.

Firstly, you have the staccato, onomatopoeic alliteration of “Time takes”.

But, more cleverly, you have Time (not you) taking the cigarette. It’s a powerful example of personification but being used in a similar way to the transferred epithet (hypallage) of  P.G. Wodehouse’s toast:

“His eyes widened and an astonished piece of toast fell from his grasp.”

The unusual attribution of the toast being astonished or time taking the cigarette grabs your attention.

Here’s Bowie live in 1990: