And so another edition (episode) of Random Bowie, look you see. Should I have got my maths right, including this one there are but four left, meaning this has all got a lot less random than at the start. Many of you shall have worked this out from the title, so high up the intelligence scale my readers are, but for clarity the album this month is Low.
This is without doubt one of the most difficult albums to write about. For many Low is without question Bowie’s “best and most important” album, despite coming out a few years before the accepted Scary Monsters yardstick normally associated with that statement. It is a record which could (just about) certainly be declared his “most influential”, as the list of artists and bands who have cited it as a major inspiration is limited only to every band ever to use a synthesiser on a record over the last 40 or so years.
It kind of feels like that everything possible to say about Low has been spoken, or written. But, let me try and muster something, then.
Fantastic facts to almost start with? Sure. In accordance with the commonly agreed method of counting them, Low was Bowie’s 11th solo album. Despite a good deal of it being recorded in France it’s widely regarded as the first instalment of the “Berlin Trilogy”. As has been widely reported and recorded, Bowie produced this at his “lowest” point, with him facing financial, physical and spiritual ruin thanks to a decidedly hedonistic LA (man) lifestyle fuelled for the most part by cocaine. That is not necessarily where the name Low for the album came from, however, although most would add the one 2 to another 2 and not be entirely wrong in getting 4, despite the title being a three letter word.
Let’s start off with the actual music, shall we? There are a whole load of other things associated with Low, to be sure, but at heart these Random Bowie things have always supposed to be about the music. Yes, I know I often get distracted, but still, let me try.
One of the most striking aspects of Low is not so much the dominance of instrumental works but rather the nature of all the songs. Very few, if any, of the pieces on the album feel “complete” in any sort of traditional sense. More often than not you, or at least I, feel like you’ve just caught the middle bit, or a specific aspect, of a much longer, expansive work. This could well be Bowie’s usual subversion on the go, but it is not distracting at all – if anything it’s a significant contributor to what makes the album entire flow so freely, and so beautifully.
The best example of the above is arguably the best known song from the record, Sound And Vision. It feels like you are dropped into part of a perpetual song. And what a song, or if you like piece of music. To reference subversion again, this is it personified. Whilst the music evokes ideas of transition, of constant movement, lyrically it is very much about stagnation, remaining still, yearning to travel with the ways the rhythm does.
Beyond Sound And Vision, my two “favourites” off the record are two of the instrumental pieces, Speed Of Life and A New Career In A New Town. Speed Of Life pretty much does what the title says, and it’s a bold, strong, inviting and engaging piece of music. For what it is worth, out of all the songs, all the records, it was Speed Of Life I ran to, and perhaps took shelter in, when Bowie died. No real discernible idea as to why, leaving aside the obvious reason of the title it just felt like the piece of music to hear right then. As for A New Career In A New Town, it’s just always struck me as a vibrant, positive, uplifting and maybe even inspirational piece. Maybe the amount of times I have moved around in my life gives it extra resonance, to be sure, but wouldn’t that be the point, or the reason, why we all engage with different musical works?
Now feels like the appropriate time to partially divert from the wonky path my narrative here is on. One of the greatest rock myths or legends out there is that, locked away somewhere, there exists an entire soundtrack for The Man Who Fell To Earth. Legend always had it that Bowie recorded a complete soundtrack for his (ostensible) film debut, but it was so bad (presumably due to his cocaine use) it got binned as unusable. Not so, on both counts, if I have made two points clearly there.
Firstly, the idea that his soundtrack for the film was “rubbish”. No, not quite. As the linear notes on the lavish re-release variations of the eventual soundtrack make clear, Bowie simply went off and wrote music he thought would suit the tone of the film. It did, but didn’t match the pacing or tempo of any of the scenes, and so simply could not be used.
As for the idea that no one (at least not us out there in the world of fans) has ever heard his soundtrack, well, I have always taken it as a given that most of Low, some of Station To Station and aspects of “heroes” was the soundtrack. Like any and all musicians, Bowie “did not waste”. Without any proof and certainly with no confirmation, I think it is safe to say we can take it as a given that all of the music Bowie produced for a possible Man Who Fell To Earth soundtrack that he felt was up to standard is sat on this record. A clue to this is, of course, the fact that both Low and Station To Station feature, as album artwork, promotional stills from the film.
But, back to what it is, and not what it might or could well be. To bounce back to the songs with lyrics (or “proper songs” if you are a record label executive), they are for the most part intriguing glimpses. We, the audience, are never quite sure whether or not what Bowie is singing is some far reaching metaphorical statement or just intended to be taken in a straightforward, literal way. With this, Always Crashing In The Same Car comes to mind. Literal or metaphorical? According to any number of stories, with one in particular suggesting that Bowie took to ramming his car into the car of a drug dealer, which would strike me as being quite a bold move), both are quite possible. Which just, you know, adds to the intrigue and interest of what is a truly fantastic piece of music in its own right.
The above can be applied to, I think, all of the lyrical songs on Low. Breaking Glass may or may not allude to Bowie’s “dabbling” with the dark arts, or if you will witchcraft. Be My Wife may or may not be some sort of plea in the direction of Angie. Exactly how you want to “understand” the songs depends, I suppose, on how much you want to delve in and know of Bowie’s personal life. You could, however, just let the songs speak for themselves. Which they do, magnificently so.
What, beyond that which I have said, do I wish to say of the instrumental pieces? Quite little, in truth. This is true of all music, I suppose, but with instrumental works I really do believe that each and every one of us “takes” something different from them, and that depends entirely on what we bring to them. To be broad, though, absolutely none of them are either a “waste of time” or simply “wankery indulgence by a self-obsessed pampered, overtly indulged pop star”. I have absolutely no musical ability whatsoever, but yes, oh yes, I can get a sense of exactly how the instrumental works on Low inadvertently gave those with such skills the impetus to go off and create.
So how come Low exists? A very good question. Rather famously, the record label hated it, sending back the tapes and asking David to “please do it again, but with singing”. There’s a strong element of catharsis and reinvention in it, with Bowie drawing on an enthusiasm for bands like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream to escape the loss of direction and troubles in his life to recreate himself not for a musical persona but for himself. Also, a reality of life. At this stage Bowie was quite tired of the fact that he was the one making the least money from David Bowie records. Legend has it that his plan was to see out his existing contract with albums that were not really radio friendly or likely to be successful in terms of sales.
If there is any truth in the motivation for the latter point, it kind of failed. The records reflect that Low found an audience more or less straight away, and sold well. It might all have been a brave, bold and stark change of direction by Bowie, but one that the fans at this stage had already come to accept, appreciate and embrace. Anyway, no doubt Low came about as a combination of all of the above, plus several other reasons. Let us rather just be thankful and appreciative that it did, rather than trouble ourselves with thoughts of how and why.
Perhaps the greatest misunderstanding of Low is the reason for the name. Most take it, or assume, as being a reference to the mood Bowie was in, that he was at his “lowest point”. That really only partially covers a certain aspect of it. As noted in this edition or episode, hopefully, much of the record is not a wallowing in depression and despair. It’s title seems to come more from the fact that the record was intended to be more “low fidelity” when compared to the in your face sound of previous works. Also, the idea that Bowie was very keen on a “low profile” at this stage. One of the things he said he loved of Berlin was that he was all but anonymous in the city, which was not the case in the UK and the USA. Further to that, “Bowie” as a concept could take a much lower profile on this record behind Bowie the artist, with the music mostly being at the forefront, rather than the attention (at the time) focused on it being “a David Bowie album”.
The standard question at this stage is if Low would be an album that you, the casual fan or the new to Bowie listener, should give a try? Yes, unequivocally yes. In truth, you could be someone that has never heard of Bowie, or has but for some reason loathes and detests him or just the idea of him, and I would still insist you give it a spin. In isolation the album is brilliant, in context this is a record which changed the direction of music that came after it, the same way that Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys did a decade or so before. I would hope that the very next time Charlie Watts out of The Rolling Stones declares that Bowie “was not some sort of genius”, someone will give him a copy of Low and ask him to explain that, then. Sure, maybe Mr Watts would just cite the presence of Tony Visconti and Brian Eno, but it is very difficult to see the work entire not existing without some sort of notion or idea of genius within the artist credited with the album.
No, I do not feel that I have done Low justice with this post. But, then again, I am not sure I’ve done any of his albums proud with any edition or episode of Random Bowie. This is just me, a simple fan, working my way through all the records. I don’t proclaim my accounts to be definitive or perfect, just hope they say something to someone somewhere.
So, three more to come. And if you think I haven't done a good job conveying what I think of Low, just you wait for the last two. The closer something is to one's heart, I suppose, the more difficult it is to speak of it in a coherent way. Maybe. I will try.
My thanks as ever to all and sundry out there who read these posts and, from time to time, go right ahead and share them with others. Should just one person go out and discover a Bowie album they'd not even heard of before, all because I did one of these posts, then that is one of the best things I can do for a random stranger in this world.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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