david bowie - station to station

I love Station To Station! 

 

David Bowie recorded this in late 1975. He'd just spent a few months in New Mexico filming The Man Who Fell To Earth. Skinny, pale as milk, and with shocking orange swept back hair, Bowie returned to Los Angeles with his head full of new ideas. Whilst making the film he'd been listening to a lot of old fashioned R'n'B and a lot of very new Krautrock. In his head bands like Kraftwerk, NEU! and Cluster mixed with Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and string-laden disco and Bowie began dreaming up new songs, mutant mixtures of funk and motorik, chilly European music and lush Philadelphia soul. 

 

He swiftly recalled the musicians who'd helped him finish Young Americans at the very start of 1975 - guitarist Carlos Alomar, bass player George Murray and drummer Dennis Davis, plus the lead guitarist on his last tour, Earl Slick, and Roy Bittan, from Springsteen's E Street Band, on piano. 

 

Holed up in LA's Cherokee Studios for most of October 1975 the band worked on the new tunes in lengthy overnight sessions. Fuelled by astonishing amounts of narcotics the backing tracks were painstakingly assembled, layer by layer, with the vocals coming last. Bowie seemed to have endless energy, despite apparently living on little more than milk and raw peppers. 

 

Harry Maslin's production is astoundingly crisp. The drums are fantastically well recorded, really sharp and dry (and Dennis Davis' drumming is magnificent too - especially all his fills on "Stay" and the restrained majesty of "Wild Is The Wind"). The instrumental separation is superb too, with every player allowed to shine. The fact that such a small group of musicians was used contributes to the starkness and clarity. Apart from Bowie's own saxophone parts there's no-one else bar the core group on this album. 

 

The title track is an amazing achievement, especially the remorseless opening half. The gradual build up from train effects through Earl Slick's guitar squeals, into the relentless rhythm track is one of my favourite bits of music ever. And then Bowie's vocal entry, with all sorts of rattling noises behind it, is just brilliant. Beautifully sung, it's a bit scary, but incredibly cool too. The lyrics include all sorts of occult and kabalistic images, and the overall effect is one of fatalistic desperation. "It's too late", repeated over and over...

 

"Golden Years" has got to be the snappiest song DB ever did. With one eye on how well "Fame" had done on the US charts Bowie is clearly aiming for another disco hit, but what a song! Effortlessly cool with all those finger clicks and casual clapping, even a bit of whistling towards the end, just tossed into the mix without a care. And what a vocal, soaring from way up high to way down low in the space of one "Go…ho….ohhl...den yeaaarrrrs….". This was the first track to be completed, and an early mix used on the black music TV show Soul Train, where Bowie lip synched (not very well, it must be said) to "Fame" and this new track in early November. 

 

"Word On A Wing" - a prayer, and it's genuine. There's nothing artificial here, no masks, no pretence. And arguably the most heartfelt vocal of Bowie's career so far. I love the synthetic strings, and the restraint of the band. Roy Bittan's piano / synth intro is gorgeous and his playing throughout this song is just lovely. There must have been the temptation to overdo this, add real strings, a gospel choir, that sort of thing. But thankfully the whole song is underplayed perfectly, allowing Bowie's vocal and lyrics to take centre stage.

 

"TVC15" - this one sticks out as an oddity on StS, but it's really needed, and actually works perfectly where it is, as light relief after the emotion of "Word On A Wing" and before the darker drama of "Stay". Partly inspired by a dream that Iggy Pop had where his girlfriend was eaten by a television set… Really. I think Iggy must've had some really strong, er, cheese before bedtime... Bittan's rocking piano lines deliberately mimic 50s rock and roll, while the 'oh-oh, oh-oh-oh' bits were pretty much nicked from the Yardbirds' "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl". And after the super slick Dave Sanborn, who'd played on the 1974 tour and Young Americans, it's great to hear that slightly asthmatic Bowie saxophone sound again. 

 

"Stay" is possibly my favourite on the album, certainly in my top ten all time Bowie songs. From the very start with Carlos Alomar's funky, urgent guitar, right through to the lengthy instrumental fade out it's perfect. Interestingly the chorus is basically a reworking of the Young Americans version of "John I'm Only Dancing (Again)" a song that is well known now, but was, back then, merely an unreleased out-take. Once again, Bowie's vocals are masterfully controlled, the music is taught, hard, driving, super funky and once the second chorus is out of the way the band lets rip, Earl Slick's lead guitar duels with Carlos Alomar's brilliant rhythm, George Murray fights back with some savage jabs from the bass and Dennis Davis anchors the whole thing with his brilliant drumming. It's so wonderfully dramatic. 

 

But not, perhaps, as dramatic as "Wild Is The Wind". Surely one of Bowie's best ever vocals? Again the temptation to sweeten the song is resisted, restraint is the order of the day, with a lush acoustic 12 string holding the song together, the other instruments acting as embellishments. Bowie's second "Don't you know you're life, itself…" is magnificent, and it's followed by an equally magnificent tour of the drum kit courtesy of Dennis Davis, before the song gathers itself for the final push. I love Bowie's music, but there's only a few of his songs that I'd consider to be actually beautiful. "Wild Is The Wind" is beautiful. An absolute work of art.

 

Speaking of art - the cover is cracking too; the words allruntogether, that mysterious black and white photo from The Man Who Fell To Earth - and it has to be the B&W picture, that full colour version on some reissues just doesn't do for me at all. Actually the B&W pic in the centre of the white sleeve was a last minute change as the colour photo covering the full sleeve was the original plan, but when he saw the proofs Bowie changed his mind because the sky showing through the open door was apparently too blue! 

 

Station To Station. It's a masterpiece isn't it? What a shame that Bowie actually doesn't remember recording a single note of it. Bowie laughed about this some years ago and said "I know it was recorded in LA because the credits say so" but he genuinely doesn't remember it at all. Way too much of Columbia's finest white powder had been consumed and it clearly took some of his memory with it!