and so here we are. this, look you see, is the last, or if you will final, edition (or if you prefer episode) of these random bowie things which i accidentally started. as far as i am aware this one marks me having covered all of the commonly agreed solo albums, along with two which are regarded as such but not officially counted. i have covered bits and bobs along the way, and over the years have dedicated much of my life to championing the easily and incorrectly dismissed Tin Machine venture.
for the last episode, then, i have saved the one which i dread writing of the most. this is because it, being Station To Station, is, for the want of a better word, my "favourite", the one which i hold closest to my heart. one, or simply i, often finds it a struggle to speak (to write) coherently about that which is held dearest. let me try.
i shall no doubt waffle and be distracted as i go, but first some quickfire fantastic facts? surely. Station To Station is, or was, the 10th studio album proper by David Bowie, as per the commonly agreed method for counting them. it came at quite a chaotic time for the artist. recorded during and shortly after his film debut "proper", The Man Who Fell To Earth, as has been well documented in the past this was a time of Byronic, hedonistic, indulgence, excess, darkness and despair.
as i would do a great disservice in not at least mentioning some of the interesting myths and legends of the time, so here they are. up to you whether to believe them, want to believe them, dismiss them, consider them irrelevant or find them a reason to love Bowie all the more. stories added together for the 75 - 76 period of Station To Station suggest it was a time for Bowie of huge volumes of sex across all genders and ages, of drugs, in particular cocaine, on Fleetwood Mac Rumours levels, of sustaining life by consuming milk and peppers alone, of being convinced that witches were attempting to steal his blood (changed to semen in some of the more exciting tellings) for no specified reason, and living in fear of Jimmy Page out of Led Zeppelin, who Bowie apparently believed was trying to "get him" via the dark arts taught by Aleister Crowley.
with respect to the above, i would once again - possibly for the last time - refer you to Bowie's own comments about if he'd ever do an autobiography. sadly i do not have the exact quote to hands, but his response was effectively "just look at all the books already written about me. find the one you consider the most interesting, or would wish was true, and take it as it is". for ever music fan that wants their stars to be all wholesome and clean cut, there's one who really loves the excesses of gratuitous sex and drugs and rock and roll, feeling that it is the only reason to become a megastar. my interest, despite finding such stories entertaining, has always been of what the music says to me, of how it makes me feel.
now then, in order to have some form of pretence of structure or order here, how about i have a go at one of them "track by track" things for this album? yes? sure. but it feels wrong to break it down part by part.
Station To Station - the titular track and, i think, by some 13 or 14 seconds, the longest single studio recorded track by Bowie. whereas "epic" should not automatically be taken as "great" in general, it does have to be said that this opus does make a mockery of a presumably jealous Charlie Watts off of the Rolling Stones claim that Bowie "was not some kind of genius".
despite the somewhat literal meaning one could take from the title, the opening trainesque sounds and the wailing, evoking train engine images sound of the guitar, Bowie maintained that a train journey was not the reference intended. rather, he noted, it was intended to conjure up images of the stations of the cross, or if you will the christian way of sorrows. this is very much in keeping with a key theme to the album, that of a challenged and questioned faith, that we will get to.
lyrically, the first half of the song is a downbeat, gloomy and somewhat marauding wallowing in alienated solitude. the second half is pure Bowie subversion, with the downbeat gloomy sense forever remaining all whilst celebrating a bleak optimism for breaking the alienation and solitude. if that makes any sense. here i'm trying to write of something that i at once find indescribable and giving me thoughts and feelings i would never wish not to have.
prior to hearing this album for the first time i really quite liked Bowie. things changed after this set of lines -
once there were mountains on mountains, once there were sun birds to soar with, once I could never be down, i've got to keep searching and searching, and oh what will I be believing and who will connect me with love?
maybe it was the time, the place, the state of mind, the who i was, what i could be, what i could become and all that when i first heard it, but those words just really struck me. at the point those words impacted on me, i knew then as i know now that i would become acolyte and advocate of Bowie, whatever was to come or happen across however much time i had would be soundtracked by what he had to say. i do not believe this has been incorrect.
or, you know, you could say "bit long but a really good song".
Golden Years - a seemingly conventional quasi ballad of a love song, with an ace groove and a funky beat. interestingly - and this will be of relevance later on - Bowie was quite happy to say that he wrote this in the hope that The King, Elvis Presley would consider recording it, but alas He did not.
i said "seemingly". there is a great danger in reading too much into stuff, into making connections that are not there. but, anyway, my observations. whenever i hear this set of lines, late in the song, i can't help but think that it's connecting to two previous tunes, Cracked Actor off Aladdin Sane and Fame off Young Americans -
some of these days, and it won't be long, gonna drive back down where you once belonged, in the back of a dream car twenty foot long
just the idea of the big car being a symbol - and trapping - of the signs and the excesses of "success", perhaps.
another line of interest would be i'll stick with you baby, for a thousand years. other than surprise that a good deal more fuss was not made about the (not actually there but still) possible third reich connotations when some corners of the press (have a guess) were trying to nail Bowie as a neo-nazi, this got echoed a few years later in Cat People (Putting Out Fire), i can stare for a thousand years. again, maybe looking for a connection that is not there.
on that last point, measurements of time seem to have been a constant in Bowie's lyrics. perhaps one day that Pointless tv show will have a category that is name a David Bowie song which mentions or makes reference to the measurement of time. off the top of my head, Five Years, Golden Years, Time, Thursday's Child, Seven, Seven Years In Tibet, Time Will Crawl and others. i can recall a fan asking him about it in one of those Q&A things, from what i remember Bowie claimed not to have noticed the pattern.
who is the ostensible man, woman or child that's the "baby" of the lyrics? a little bit of research says that every single man, woman or child in the life of Bowie at that time has made a claim that it was written about them. in all probability, a combination of people or no one at all, it just sounded good. and the song does sound really, really good.
Word On A Wing - considering His love of gospel, one really cannot help but wonder if Bowie would not have had greater success had he offered this song to The King, Elvis Presley to record.
a song that their can be no mistaking the meaning or intention of. lines such as Lord i kneel and offer you my word on a wing, and i'm trying hard to fit among Your scheme of things and my prayer flies like a word on a wing, does my prayer fit in with Your scheme of things? can leave little doubt, surely, of christian faith, of devotion to a God as creator and an omnipotent God who might make sense of things.
but it is not a blind faith devoid of conflict. another truly great line to be found on the album is just because i believe, don't mean I don't think as well, don't have to question everything in heaven and hell. at no stage in his life did Bowie ever shy away from the fact that he had faith, that he believed, but the same is also true in the form of his frustration, disappointment and perhaps even loathing of what "man", in the form or organised religion, had done to such faith.
we also have Bowie on record saying that this song in particular was written in the depths of darkness and despair. he had commented that the lyrics came about as his cocaine habit became all consuming, as he felt pressed to breaking point by the fame, adulation, pressure of being Bowie and huge demands of playing the role of The Man Who Fell To Earth all at once. it would be fair to say this beautiful, poignant song is then Bowie catharsis, clutching for hope and light.
i don't really have anything constructive or intelligent to say about this point, but i do feel obliged to draw your attention to Bowie's performance at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert at this stage. you know, the one where he concluded by kneeling and saying The Lord's Prayer.
TVC15 - let it not be said that drugs are all bad, then. although often for sad reasons of desperation and a need to escape, a great many people commence a relationship with narcotics because they are just so much damned fun. they can, for instance, make you hallucinate the idea of being sucked into a television set, which is what happened during one session on the lash for Bowie and his chum Iggy Pop, with this song being a recollection of that.
it's a fun, witty, almost ragtime jazz piece. the "oh OH ho Oh HO" bit is absolutely wonderful to sing along to.
did this song perhaps echo over the years which followed? maybe. the concepts and ideas of holograms, indeed virtual reality, had surfaced in science fiction before, but this is surely one of the first instances of such being the subject of a pop song. mostly, with this song, i have often wondered if the one line from Talking Heads in Burning Down The House, i don't know what you expect staring into a tv set was some form of subtle nod to this song.
Stay - the last original composition on the album. yeah, six tracks. when i first picked up the record, looking at the number of songs rather than the running time, i confess that i did wonder if it was "some sort of EP" rather than an album.
one can have little doubt about the ostensible subject matter of Stay. the sultry, dirty guitar, the impassioned drawl of Bowie's vocals and the obscenity of the thumping bass all point to the joys, or perils, of sexual conquest and sexual gratification. however, i seem to disagree with the commonly shared view. there's a clue in the title. whereas most journalists, critics and writers who i have read what they have to say of the song seem to limit focus to it being about a "one night stand", for me the key is the lingering longing to not have that, to have someone to "stay", to have the will and desire to stay with someone. i would have thought my understanding of the song was the most obvious?
an interesting dynamic - possibly subversion - for me in terms of this song is that it's thematically at odds with the rest of the album. or perhaps not. whereas all other songs apparently deal with movement or passing - being station to station / stations of the cross, the passing of time, into a tv set, the flight of a prayer - this one laments the passing, and clearly expresses a wish, a will or a desire to remain still. but then maybe it is not so much at odds, but Bowie underlining the point or the ethos of the quasi narrator of the album, the "thin white duke".
Wild Is The Wind - at least one cover version was the norm for a Bowie album up to this time. here he selected this ballad, apparently inspired to by a meeting with Nina Simone that by all accounts left him quite besotted with Nina Simone. and why not.
sigh, in this day and age where one cannot have a full, frank and honest conversation, i can totes see someone picking on me and slamming me for some form of racism here. which is a shame. as a pale white English boy, i absolutely fully get Bowie's fascination with Nina, and others. it is an often unspoken thing, but for the majority of us pale white English boys (the less savoury right wing types being an obvious exclusion), well, we get "quite excited" and have "funny feeling" in a very, very good way indeed as and when a lady of colour from a more exotic part of the world happens to glance our way. just how we are, really, happily. for further illustration of this, by all means stick Prince Charles in a room with Tina Turner and watch what happens to him, it's quite class it is, to be sure.
many have hailed this as Bowie's "best, greatest and strongest ever" vocal performance. for me that kind of came every single time he opened his mouth, but there is absolutely no doubting or questioning that this is a truly remarkable delivery. alas, for reasons of association and other things it's not one that i have ever been too fond of. it does not do much for me as a song, and whilst i don't reach to switch it off, it is not like i actively go and play it.
phew, ok, that's the song by song stuff done. in a clumsy, poorly written way, i would accept, but i can only do what i can do. now, then, i am free to waffle even more than i have, in the hope it makes some sense.
one of the reasons i so dearly love this album is because it is what i believe to be his most personal. my listening to it says that the artist poured every ounce, every calorie of their heart and soul into the words, the sounds, the structure and the feel. this is at odds with the general view. in what might be the greatest act of subversion ever done by Bowie, he routinely dismissed questions about the album with the line "i did so many drugs at the time that i cannot remember a single thing about writing or recording it". what a lovely rock legend, and Bowie must surely have known that journalists would happily just run with that juicy headline and not worry so much about looking for anything else.
Bowie once said that he had never read an article about Station To Station which he believed "got" the record. in that i can feel safe in writing as i have on the topic, then, for surely i can be no more wrong than anyone before me. part of me, then, is curious in connection to the above. when all those journalists happily went off with their sensational headline "ha ha Bowie can't remember doing an album because he did so many drugs", was it that they were lazy or did they simply miss the clue, the line (so to speak) in the title song it's not the side effects of the cocaine?
what does it mean when we speak of an artist being "brave"? there are those who would say that describing people as "brave" or "having courage" should be reserved for those who serve and defend, those who put their literal life on the line for others. but, how about exposing your entire heart and soul to the world through your art? you surely risk utter (and yes, granted, self-inflicted and self-absorbed to a degree) destruction of you as a person if rejected. when artists have done this, it's invariably been less the commercial success or the fame to gain, more to grasp at an acceptance, and understanding, to connect. examples of this, off the top of my head, would be Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, The Joshua Tree by U2, Automatic For The People (maybe excluding Sidewinder but all need to smile sometimes) by REM, maybe Misplaced Childhood by Marillion and possibly The Stone Roses by The Stone Roses, although none of us shall ever penetrate the majesty of that one. for the darker side, see (or hear) also In Utero by Nirvana, and in particular The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers. in saying absolutely none of them are better or worse or greater or smaller than each other, it would be to me that Bowie with Station To Station laid out a sort of blueprint for those albums to follow.
back, then, to Bowie's apparent casual dismissal of the album, and how i believe that's quite the act and the art of subversion which has been hit on several times in these random bowie episodes, or if you like editions.
for an album Bowie would go on and describe as one that he either "couldn't remember" recording, or did but said he "didn't connect to it", he sure spent a lot of time going back to it. the recently released Glastonbury 2000, for example, features four of the six songs from the album in the set, including the title track.
also, if not everything, then a lot of Blackstar, or if you prefer ★, said "please go back to look at and listen to Station To Station". for example, and as some of you quite like, i believe, bullet points
- the title song Blackstar is the longest one Bowie's done since the title song for Station To Station
- Blackstar only has seven songs, the smallest number on a Bowie album since Station To Station
- the song Blackstar references The King, Elvis Prelsey, who Bowie wrote a song that he had hoped He would perform that was on Station To Station
- in the video for Lazarus, in particular the last ever moving image we shall ever see of Bowie, Bowie is dressed as identically as he can be as to how he appeared on the back cover artwork and promotional images for Station To Station.
oh, to be sure, there are probably a lot more references to Station To Station tucked away in Blackstar. but, to be just as sure, certainly those strikingly obvious ones are enough to see and say that Bowie wanted anyone interested in doing so to reconsider Station To Station.
for those with an interest in how the record industry works, the 89 / 90 "Ryko" CD release of Station To Station featured two live tracks from Nassau Coliseum, Word On A Wing and Stay. lovely quality, far superior to the "taped off the radio" bootleg which had done the rounds for it, and i have tucked away somewhere. despite the masters clearly being available then, it was only in the 2000s, when a lavish deluxe reissue of Station To Station was Bowie's will, that the whole set got released. it is a really, really good live album - in particular as the official release trims some of the lengthy, monotonous drum solo from Panic In Detroit. went on for 12 or so minutes on the bootleg.
i bring up the above to illustrate that nothing ever seems to be "wasted". stuff gets stored, and sat on, waiting for release. to this end, the myths of the soundtrack for The Man Who Fell To Earth, which has cropped up in previous episodes. many myths and rock legends exist about Bowie's proposed soundtrack. the top two are that he was so trashed on cocaine that he simply couldn't record one, or that he was so trashed on cocaine that what he produced was garbage. neither were true. as the linear notes of the recently issued used soundtrack state, Bowie went off and "did a soundtrack" without considering the timing and tempo requirements for matching music to move. what he did was good but simply not suitable. i contest, then, that there is no great "lost" album in the form of Bowie's soundtrack for The Man Who Fell To Earth; as far as i am concerned he will have simply used what he did on tracks for Station To Station, Low and perhaps "heroes" too.
everyone has "their" Bowie. by that what i mean is when you say to someone "David Bowie", they imagine him by the image they hold. some would have an image of him as Ziggy, or resplendent with the Aladdin Sane lightning flash. others may think of the swaggering pop icon of Let's Dance and Live Aid. more than would be prepared to admit it would instantly think of the massive hair, massive codpiece Goblin King of Labyrinth. some might even think of the mid to late 90s, mid life crisis, "i am down with the kids and i done a sex" Earthling Bowie. several might consider those final images we had of him. for me, whenever someone says Bowie, i picture the impeccably dressed, torn, tormented, desperately lonely, wishing to connect, wanting love, longing to believe Bowie of Station To Station. this is the Bowie i lay prostrate before, this is the Bowie i unashamedly fell in love with.
which would be why, in the year of his passing, my (considerably) better half set her talents to work so as to produce this magnificent portrait painting for my birthday. quite the gift of love and understanding, for this would not be the Bowie which would come to her mind, but knows that it is most decidedly the one which comes to mine.
the conclusion of these episodes has normally been is the album discussed worth a listen or a purchase by you, the casual Bowie listener. well, yes. it is an album i would suggest everyone should own a copy of. should it be, in bizarre and unimaginable circumstances, i was forced to select just one Bowie album and one Bowie album only to listen to for the rest of my days, it would be Station To Station. and i am not alone - if my reading of facts and figures is correct, this album (despite feeling like it was always a bit under the radar) remained the biggest selling of all his releases in the USA, up until the coming and the aftermath of Blackstar.
a quick wrap of other 70s work not covered in other posts? sure. The Man Who Fell To Earth is a quite strange but very satisfactory film, in which you see Bowie do nudies if that is your thing. All The Young Dudes what he did for (and with) Mott The Hoople is an amazing tune. them two records what he done with Iggy Pop, The Idiot and in particular Lust For Life (featuring the brothers Sales, and thus making it a sort of quasi prototype Tin Machine), are outstanding records. his narration of Peter And The Wolf is also most worthwhile.
so, that is that. at some stage, and by popular request, i will do a "mega post" which features links to all of the episodes of random bowie. the only thing left here for me is to thank you, sincerely and very much, for indulging my passion and dealing with my poor writing across these posts. i really hope someone, somewhere, found something of interest in one or two of them.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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