as "creepy". Although it quotes Nineteen Eighty-Four directly, O'Leary and James Perone argue the song owes more to the writings of Burroughs. The centrepiece of side two of the original LP, "1984" was the signature number for Bowie's planned adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four. It has been interpreted as representing Winston Smith's imprisonment and interrogation by O'Brien. The lyrics also bear some similarities to Bowie's earlier song "All the Madmen", from The Man Who Sold the World—"They'll split your pretty cranium and fill it full of air." AllMusic's Donald A. Guarisco wrote: "Bowie's recording of "1984" fully realizes the song's cinematic potential with a dramatic arrangement that utilizes skittering strings and a throbbing wah-wah guitar line that effectively mirrors the song's clipped, militaristic rhythms." Originally recorded during the Aladdin Sane sessions, the rerecording's wah-wah guitar is reminiscent of Isaac Hayes's "Theme from Shaft". Guarisco and Pegg felt the song's funk and soul nature fully predicted the direction Bowie would take on Young Americans. According to Pegg, the theme of "Big Brother" is "the dangerous charisma of absolute power and the facility with which societies succumb to totalitarianism's final solutions". It was a possible contender to close Bowie's adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Featuring synthesisers and saxophones, the track builds to a climax that Buckley considers reminiscent of The Man Who Sold the World. The track segues into "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family", a variation on "Two Minutes Hate" from Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is a chant in 5/4 and 6/4 time, with a distorted guitar loop. On the original LP, the word brother repeats in a "stuck-needle effect", similar to the ending of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). Artwork and packaging The cover artwork depicts Bowie as a striking half-man, half-dog grotesque. He sports his Ziggy Stardust haircut and two "freak-show" dogs surround him shown against a backdrop of New York City. The artwork originated from a photo session with photographer Terry O'Neill. Bowie opted not to use any of his previous cover artwork photographers and instead requested the services of Belgian artist Guy Peellaert, whose recently published Rock Dreams catalogue, featuring numerous airbrushed and exploited photographs, was growing in popularity. Bowie invited Peellaert to the photoshoot where he posed as a dog and with a Great Dane brought to the session. Bowie asked Peellaert if he would like to develop a painting for the artwork, based