Station to Station

Station to Station is the 10th album of David Bowie, left in 1976.

Often neglected, it is a good synthesis between the experimental first steps of Diamond Dogs and the white drunk of Young Americans.

Recorded in the United States, Bowie invents for the occasion a new character: the Thin White Duke (thin white duke), Bowie is in fact in one of the phases more terrifying its life. Tear with cocaine, in prey with the psychological disorders, it leaves never again its house of Los Angeles, being nourished very little…

It obtains despite everything a role with the cinema while turning in the man who came besides from NIC Roeg. Heavily marked by this experiment it will never be left truly the character and that feels in Station to Station and the albums which follow…

The recording of the album begins with the autumn 1975. Tony Visconti is not renewed to produce it. Carlos Alomar is always there and entrusts that it is about one of the album where he had fun the most. Associated with Earl Slick and Roy Bittan with the piano the album appears a mixture of rhythmic conventional and experiments.

Really not noticed at its exit it is interesting as an album hinge, footbridge obvious of the drunk person American of Young Americans towards the future Berliner experiments (Low, Heroes, Lodger) (all the more true as the style of Brecht is found well in this album. That is however true for most of its career).

Titles

  1. Station to station (Bowie) 10:11
  2. Golden Years (Bowie) 4:00
  3. Word one has wing (Bowie) 5:50
  4. TVC 15 (Bowie) 5:31
  5. Stay (Bowie) 6:13
  6. Wild is the wind (Tiomkin, Washington) 6:00

Analyzes titles

  • Station to Station

It is the most singular title of the album. Length of more than ten minutes, it traces the departure of Bowie of the United States towards Europe. He announces the Trans Europe Express train of Kraftwerk of 1977. (which will quote Bowie explicitly besides). The Red Hot Chili Peppers refer there also in their title Californication.
The words are tinkled of irony. " It' S not the side effect off the cocaine" sings Bowie while at the same time the album results only from that… " The return off the thin white Duke throwing dart' S in lovers eyes" is an good example of all the enigmatic sentences contained in the title. Station to station appears a synthesis of the aspirations and fears of Bowie. It will be the case for all the titles of the album.

  • Golden delicious Years

The title of the album completed in first. According to the legend it was offered to Elvis Presley which refused it…
It is probably one of the most succeeded titles of Bowie. It evokes much nostalgia. Bowie shows also all its vocal diversity and the instrumentation is shown rather unusual.

  • Word one has wing

Strange song in more than one way. It seems a will and a repentance of Bowie. Deeply atheistic it explicitly calls for the first time upon the Lord. (" Lord I kneel and offer you my vord one has wing" lord I offer to you with knees my word which flies away).
Composed like an anthem, the support of the choruses and organ give the impression to be found in a church. Bowie says to have considered it like a canticle.

  • TVC 15

It is about a wink with Iggy Pop. It expresses well the technique of the cut up employed by Bowie (the random use of words taken for their sonorities and not their true direction).
The words show thus not very explicit and coherent…
Bowie wanted to create a monotonous effect with a surprising end and it is completely the discounted effect.

  • Stay

It remains still today a standard of David Bowie. Used in almost all its concerts with very different arrangements and musicians what multiplies the approches.
The version album appears indeed somewhat black. Bowie expresses its brittleness and its mental derangement. If one often quotes the songs of the following albums to express his faintness Stay remains surely that or it is most permeable, where its emotions its anguishes arise in a state gross left any effect of style.
The Live versions are very often more " joyeuses" and lets sting more irony than of despair.

  • Wild is The wind

Bowie finished the album by a resumption of Dimitri Tiomkin. He intends to show all his vocal performances of the time and exaggerates the vibrato deliberately and especially stretches the syllables with their maximum in the last part of the song.

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