1333. David Bowie / Station to Station. 1976. 4/5

By the time we had reached the mid-1970’s it is remarkable to think that David Bowie had already released nine studio albums. Much of his success up until that point in time had been his ability to reinvent himself and his style of music, meeting trends (or perhaps setting them himself) and creating and crafting songs and music that were able to meet the mood of the time, and then build on the legend he had created for himself. It is also true that his success was not always met with the huge monetary returns or initial albums sales that we have seen in the years and decades since. However, in regards to the recording and release of this album, it was the commercial success of his previous album, “Young Americans” in 1975 that allowed Bowie far greater freedom when it came time to write and record his next album. It is also true that the sessions established the lineup of guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray and drummer Dennis Davis that Bowie would use for the remainder of the 1970’s decade.
It had been a remarkably busy time for Bowie in both his music and his other creative pursuits. Following the release of “Young Americans”, Bowie was offered a role in the movie adaptation of Walter Tevis's 1963 novel ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’. In the film, Bowie portrays the lead role of Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien who travels to Earth in search of materials for his dying planet, eventually becoming corrupted by humans. director Nicolas Roeg warned the star that the part of Newton would likely remain with him for some time after the filming. With Roeg's agreement, Bowie developed his own look for the film, and this served as a major influence on Bowie's next onstage character, the Thin White Duke. Prior to filming beginning Bowie had picked up a nasty cocaine addiction. He recalled in 1993: "My one snapshot of that film is not having to act...Just being me as I was perfectly adequate for the role. I wasn't of this earth at that particular time”. Bowie moved to Los Angeles for the filming, and stayed with Deep Purple Bass guitarist Glenn Hughes – not the most stable of room mates. Bowie lived in an increasingly paranoid state, recalling he refused to use elevators because of his fear of heights. His addiction severed friendships with musicians Keith Moon, John Lennon and Harry Nilsson; he later said: "If you really want to lose all your friends and all of the relationships that you ever held dear, cocaine is the drug to do it with”.
When he had time off from filming, Bowie wrote a collection of short stories called ‘The Return of the Thin White Duke’, as well as writing new songs as the film progressed. On its conclusion, Bowie and his band returned to the studio to create, master and record his follow up to “Young Americans” that he simply titled “Station to Station”.

The opening track winds its way through ten minutes of beautiful and imaginative Bowie magnificence, the longest song of Bowlie’s entire discography, the opening wavy imitations of a steam train entering the station not lost upon the title of the track, before incorporating the distorted guitar in the back of the mix, allowing the drum beat and funky bass to hold court in the main. It is a slow march, in no hurry to reach its destination. At the five minute mark to song moves into a higher energy and faster tempo, and it is almost a different song in the way it jumps around enhanced by the keyboards and bass and guitar solo through the back half of the song that now dominates, bringing back sounds that are familiar on “Aladdin Sane” and “Ziggy Stardust”. It doesn’t feel like ten minutes while listening to the song, perhaps because it DOES feel like two different tracks, and because the second half of the song is so upbeat and joyous. Lyrically the Thin White Duke persona is mentioned in the first line, and brings us to where this album and Bowie himself were heading on this album. It is a cracking opening track.
“Golden Years” was the first single released from the album, some two months prior to the album’s release, acting as its emissary. It is perhaps the best known track from the album, and also possesses a more regular rhythm and vocal throughout as a result. Stories abound that the track was written for Elvis Presley, with whom Bowie shared a record label at the time, but that he turned it down. It is more of a mid-tempo funky groove and less energetic than the opening track, one that sits in a safe space here.
“Word on a Wing” closes out the first side of the album, draw back even further, offering closer to a soul sound than the funk and energy of the previous two tracks. Bowie admits that the song was written out of a coke-addled spiritual despair that he experienced while filming “The Man Who Fell to Earth”. In 1980 Bowie spoke to the magazine NME, saying: "There were days of such psychological terror when making the Roeg film that I nearly started to approach my reborn, born again thing. It was the first time I'd really seriously thought about Christ and God in any depth, and 'Word on a Wing' was a protection. It did come as a complete revolt against elements that I found in the film. The passion in the song was genuine... something I needed to produce from within myself to safeguard myself against some of the situations I felt were happening on the film set”. And you can hear this in his vocals through the song, the passion and desperation all mixed into one during his performance. Given his quoted thoughts, you feel as there is no acting going into this particular track.
Side 2 opens with “TVC 15”, a song that appears well influenced by the cocaine that he was imbibing at the time. The track features almost honky tonk piano in places, and discusses the protagonist watching his girlfriend being eaten by his TV, and knowing the only way to get her back is to follow her in. It is a song not from a lucid mind one suspects, and yet here it works in the context of how the album came to be produced. If one were to criticise it, the perhaps it repeats itself for too long to take the song out to its conclusion, but perhaps that is exactly what the song was trying to indicate. Following this comes “Stay”, a true funk and soul guitar built track that incorporates the best pieces of Bowie’s repertoire, the heavy rhythm section overlain with great guitar licks and Bowie’s vocals moving between low to high, conversational to singing as the song requires. Guitarist Carlos Almoar later recalled: “This song was recorded very much in a cocaine frenzy. 'Stay' was basically done with the rhythm section. It was pretty funky and pretty much straight ahead. I wrote out a chart and said this was pretty much what we wanted to do. That song I think David did on the guitar. He strummed a few chords for me, and then we gave it back to him. The rhythm section really liked that one, and then Earl Slick covered some of the lines I had laid down with a thicker sound”. The band is really given its chance to shine on this track, and the mix of the album, with the bass coming through forward while the guitars are slightly more in the background works a treat.
The album closer is “Wild is the Wind”, which is a cover of the Johnny Mathis song that was recorded for the 1957 film of the same name, and which was then recorded by Nina Simone. It was this version of the song that Bowie covered, saying it was as a homage to her vision of the track. Simone had extensively reworked the song, with slow, sparse instrumentation and her drawn-out vocal delivery expressing a sense of loss. Bowie admired this, and for his version here he said he tried to take special care with the arrangement and production, committing to an emotional and romantic vocal performance modelled after Simone's. It is indeed quite a startling performance here by Bowie. Musically it is beautifully moulded and performed, but it is his vocal performance that is staggeringly good. Everything about this track is pure magnificent David Bowie, and something that is hard not to love.

David Bowie was a ‘later in life’ love affair for me. He was always someone who I knew of, mainly from some obsessive fans that I went to high school with, who did spend some time trying to convince me of his supposed greatness. But it wasn’t until the late 1990’s that I began to be drawn in by his music, and that came from a couple of different sources, which included movies and TV shows that I admired using his music in them, and thus giving me a greater exposure to a wider range of his music. This eventually led to me investigating through a best of album, and once I had been indoctrinated, it meant then investigating David Bowie albums on a whole. And the fact that he had so many of them made it a long and somewhat slow process. And it also involved some albums immediately connecting with me, and others that remained on the periphery for a long time.
“Station to Station” has been one of those albums that has remained mostly a mystery to me. I didn’t even own my own copy of this album until just recently, and I admit that had been an oversight. Apart from the well known track of “Golden Years”, I didn’t even know the name of the other five songs on the album. So it is definitely one of those albums that I don’t know particularly well. One of the things that surprised me about “Station to Station” is that it is so highly regarded within the Bowie fandom, and even in regards to albums that critics suggest everyone should listen to. Only because, within the people that I discuss music with, it has never ever been mentioned. The albums all around it are all spoken of, but this one I just was barely aware of. And this made my dissection of the album for this episode more than interesting.
As you will have heard, it has been an interesting experience this week, reliving an album that I had heard before but never really taken in. It is a transitional album, away from those early 70’s albums and into what would become his Berlin Trilogy, where his sound and image took on its own new persona. And the more I have listened to the album, the more I have enjoyed it. I enjoy how it doesn’t outstay its welcome, it isn’t overblown in regard to total length, and the six songs sit in a perfect arc that when looked at in retrospect, around all of his other albums of that decade, seems to be a perfect fit. And in many ways, only someone like David Bowie could have achieved that.
In my mind, as I approach an older age, I look forward to the day when I can sit back, set aside an entire week, and work my way completely through David Bowie’s discography, and get a true feeling for the way he put together his musical career. Listening to “Station to Station” this week, and finding another piece of that puzzle, I get the feeling that my appreciation for his greatness would increase if, or when, I get that opportunity.