The 3 months before recording this album Bowie had spent on location filming "The Man who Fell to Earth" under the direction of Nicholas Roeg, this is an adaptation of the Walter Tevis novel of the same name, this is where Bowie plays the part of Thomas Jerome Newton, an extraterrestrial who ends up stranded on Earth after coming here to try and save his dying planet, he uses his superior technology to secure a position of economic power to fund a private space programme, he becomes a threat to the establishment and is kidnapped, he both corrupted and seduced by Earth even his appearance is a lie Newton wears contact lens, a wig, false ears and artificial genitalia (explain that one on your wedding night).
Roeg was determined that Bowie played the part after seeing him on the Alan Yentob documentary "Cracked Actor", Roeg was fascinated by Bowies fragile intensity, his air of alienation, his use of roles and his unearthly appearance. Roeg had realised that Bowie was preoccupied with the alien, the outsider, the superman, and the aura of a person who was comfortable anywhere because he had no home.
The initial advance publicity for the film said that Bowie was to do the soundtrack, but unfortunately this was around about the same time of his break up from Tony Defries and the relationship had reached litigation point, this could be why no such soundtrack appeared, this was much to the films distributors puzzlement and dismay as to why a Bowie soundtrack did not appear on the final version of the movie. This is could be why Bowie flew his band Carlos Alomar (rhythm guitar, Dennis Davis drums, George Murray bass, Earl Slick lead guitar, Warren Peace backing vocals (a.k.a. Geoffrey MacCormack who is a school friend of Bowies) and borrowed Bruce Springsteens E-street band Roy Bittan on piano from New York to Cherokee studios in L.A. to record in a frenzied 10 day amphetamine fuelled recording session the album Station to Station, which had the original title "The return of the Thin White Duke" and was originally released on the 23rd of January 1976, the album lasts only 38 minutes and 10 seconds and only has 6 tracks.
This album effectively divides the 70's off for Bowie as it ties up the era of Ziggy Stardust and plastic soul and introduces the first taste of the new music that was to follow and it also uses for the first time the nucleus of Alomar, Davies and Murray and the album features the last great Bowie persona "The Thin White Duke", Bowie also abandons his song writing method of 5 years, and is the last album recorded in America until 1980's "Scary Monsters".
This album is both Bowie's most impenetrable and accessible, musically it presents a synthesis of power, simplicity and grandeur, and a dark cold surface where Bowie is flailing in his own alienation and loneliness.
The album itself begins with the title track "Station to Station" (10.11) the sound of a synthesised steam train comes into earshot this moves closer and closer and goes from speaker to speaker, the howl of Earl Slick's guitar, then the rest of the band enter and then they
proceed to lay down 2 alienating chords, the lead guitar starts to waver and scream, a riff develops slowly and stately and with a great sense of menace the bass growls, Carlos Alomar's rhythm guitar begins to pick out the melody, the crashing of cymbals, the sound of castanets and swirling keyboards all leading to the opening line which is delivered with more of a snarl than a croon "The return of the thin white duke throwing darts in lovers' eyes, Here are we one magical moment, Such is the stuff from where dreams are woven", once this track gets going it has 3 distinctive parts, first part slow stately pace, middle section which is more up-tempo which starts with heavenly sounding keyboards and the thud, thud on the roto-toms then the line "Once there where mountains on mountains, And once there where sunbirds to soar with, And once I could never be down, Got to keep searching and searching, And oh what will I be believing and who will connect me with love?" The pace starts to build to the chorus of "It's not the side effects of the cocaine, I'm thinking this must be love, It's too late to be grateful, It's too late to be late again, It's too late to be hateful, The European cannon is here" the chorus is given more punch with the use of tambourines and a vamping piano, this builds to the last part where Slick's lead guitar bookends the frenzy that is at the end of the track, the song ends with handclaps and the sound of piano runs going off into the distance and the 10 minute plus epic ends. When I first head this track I thought Bowie was trying to get Slick to sound like Mick Ronson but what I later found out was what Bowie was trying to do was get the sound he later achieved when he used Robert Fripp in his recordings.
"Golden Years" (4.00) is a song Bowie that had once been intended for Elvis, but the King had rejected the track, it is also the first track Bowie had finished during the recording of this album.
This slinky funky slither of disco carries with it an air of regret for missed opportunities and past pleasures even although the lyrics state the exact opposite, their even hints of a Presleyesque vocals to add to the drama in Bowies voice, the song has always reminded me of a Stevie Wonder track such as "Superstition" and "Living in the City" with the rhythm guitar of Alomar borrowing from Wonder to introduce the song with the catchy "Golden Years gold whoop, whoop, whoop. Golden Years gold whoop, whoop, whoop, Golden Years gold whoop, whoop, whoop, Don't let me hear you say life's taking you nowhere, angel, cool sounding castanets are used on the intro of this song, for it's single release it had been edited to create what record companies call a perfect single (the thinking being that perfect pop records are 3 minutes and 30 seconds long) so someone cut this down from 4 minutes to 3 minutes and 27 seconds, they've just cut the fade out, the catalogue number for this single is RCA 2682 and the single got to number 8 in the UK singles chart in November 1975. If you want this edited version seek out the double CD "Best of Bowie" catalogue number 7243 5 39821 2 6 I have seen it in Woolies for about £5.99 a bargain for a double album. To promote this single Bowie made a return visit to the highly rated American TV. Show "Soul Train" the scene of his "Fame" triumph.
The desperate need to believe where no belief is possible is the theme that dominates this elegant hymn/ballad that is "Word on a Wing"(5.59) this track dates from a time when Bowie was turning to religion for enlightenment he was even wearing a discreet crucifix on his under nourished neck, the sparse arrangement of this track which uses lush sounding keyboards and piano to introduce the song with Dennis Davis going round the drum kit with Slick starting to play some phased guitar, that along with the sound of bongos add the melody that allows Bowie to begin some Sintra inspired crooning that starts with "In this age of grand delusion, You walked into my life out of my dreams, I don't need another change, Still you force a way into my scheme of things" in between the lines is some wonderful sounding piano work from Roy Bittan that cascades like water that add another level of prettiness to this track. Bowie begs the lord accept his prayer and his "Word On a Wing" in the songs crucial line Bowie pleads, "Just because I believe don't mean I don't think as well/don't have to question everything in heaven and hell". He states at one point that he's trying "hard to fit among your scheme of things" and then announces that he's ready to shake the scheme of things, romantic love and religion is this the solutions the Duke is investigating to test his numbness? The track ends with sustained chords on a mellotron and a multi-tracked backing vocal by Bowie and Warren Peace that create a heavenly sounding choir in the days of vinyl that was the end of side 1.
The next track is an everyday tale of a television eating your girlfriend, a story allegedly told to Bowie by Iggy Pop this is according to the engineer and co-producer of the album Harry Maslin (who had worked on the previous album "Young Americans") but what the song is, is a tribute to the R&B standard "Good Morning little School girl which the Yardbirds covered in 1964 for their second single catalogue number Columbia DB 7391 which got to number 44 in UK singles chart in November 1964.
T.V.C.15 (5.31)starts with a barroom on the piano, which is the backing up for the uh-oh-uh-oh-oh vocal intro, then the line "Up every morning bout half past eight or nine, I give complete attention to a very good friend of mine, He's a quadraphonic he's a, He's got more channels, so hologramic on my TVC one five" this song has one of the simplest and best hooks "Transmission/Transition", the rolling honky tonk piano playing of Bittan fills the whole track and Slick creates a wall of guitar that gives Bowie's asthmatic saxophone a chance to blow at the end of the line of the chorus to add colour and urgency the bass and piano interplay during the middle 8 that is mixed together with tenor and alto sax along with the driving piano this continues until the fadeout. This was the second single from this album and was released during the European leg of the 1976 tour but still only reached number 33 in the UK single chart in May 1976 the catalogue number fore this single was RCA 2682
"Stay" (6.13) boasts a stunning opening edgy funk guitar intro from Slick that is played against the rhythm guitar of Alomar, an icy veil of synthetic strings and clattering congas sound before the drums kick in the guitar strangling of Slick the song opens with the line "This week dragged past me so slowly, The days fell on their knees, Maybe I'll take something to help me, Hope someone takes after me" Bowie's multi-tracked croon demonstrates an extreme stylisation of "feelings" without ever implying that a genuine emotion is actually used check the line "Stay/that's what I meant to say/Stay", he pleads, musing, You can never really tell when somebody really loves you". The melody of this song is one of Bowies underrated, its use throughout this song is highly effective, the track rides out on more riffing on the song main guitar theme Slick and Alomar get more and more edgier until the bass playing of Murray joins them in the front of the mix with some tough sounding bass fills, all this for the story of the dangers of a one night stand.
To close out this album Bowie has chosen to cover a track from a lacklustre 1957 Western called "Wild is the Wind"(6.00) which has lyrics by Ned Washington and music by "High Noon composer Dimitri Tiomkin the original song was sung by Johnny Mathis on the film credits, in 1966 Nina Simone covered the same song and I think David borrowed heavily from her interpretation checkout the version on an album called "Nina Simone Gold" to hear what I mean (catalogue number 9808087 on the universal label 2003 pressing)
Bowie's version is a simple stark arrangement that has few instruments, which gives the song a cinematic feel and sound to achieve this he has used bass, drums, congas 12-string guitar and gently phased electronic guitar this gently begins to quietly introduce the lines "Love me, love me, love me, love say you do, let me fly away with you" during the course of the song he twice asks "Don't you know your life itself?" before ending on a falsetto slur that brings across the purity of the song for me one of Bowie's classic cover songs in which he stamps with himself with a little inspiration from Simone.
When this album was first re-issued in 1992 EMI (catalogue number CDP 70 6435 2) tacked on a couple of live tracks from the 1976 tour both come from a show at the Nassau Coliseum Long Island on the 23rd of march 1976, both are very similar to the album cuts except for Bowies vocals that sound like he's got a cold, no it's the cocaine side effects nuff said "Word on a Wing" and "Stay" finish that version
With the release of "Station to Station" Bowie said farewell to Los Angles, cocaine and the high life of the big shot rock star and spent the next 5 years recovering from it hopefully "the thin white duke" has been locked away forever. Small piece of trivia when this album was first put out Bowie at the last minute rejected the colour sleeve in favour of a black and white version claiming that the blue sky looked artificial when has that stopped him from doing anything?
This 1999 version boasts better sound than the 1992 version and a complete set of lyrics and rare photos,but with it coming up to the 30th anniversary of the release of this album can we had a double CD version with a complete live show with warts and all please!
This album has never dated, never become quaint, and never acquired a layer of charm to hide its powerful heart that didn't clash with the period as the musical background was changing with the upheaval and birth of the punk scene, the influence of this album wouldn't be apparent until "New Romantic" bands walked the same ground with alienation and big vocal delivery.
To the end I shall finish where I started in the film "The Man who fell to Earth" the Bowie character makes an album called "The Visitor" which nobody got to hear, was it this album? Was it a soundtrack album? Or was it Low?
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An eerie dispatch from the furthest reaches of Bowie's cocaine paranoia, Station To ... more
Station has not become easier to listen to with the passing years. At this stage, Bowie was wrapped up in his peculiar--even by his standards--Thin White Duke period, w...
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