Station to Station is David Bowie’s 10th studio album, it was released on 23 January 1976 by RCA records. The commercial success of his previous record Young Americans gave Bowie renewed creative freedom, allowing him to further develop the funk and soul sounds of that album while also delving into a more art rock experimental direction. In early 1975, Bowie had moved to Los Angelas to play the lead role in the Nicolas Roeg film The Man Who Fell to Earth, which tells the story of an alien named Thomas Jerome Newton who comes to Earth with the goal of shipping water back to his own planet which is suffering from severe drought, however the alien finds himself getting drawn in to human vices, sex, and corruption. The part would greatly influence Bowie for the next year leading the development of his controversial Thin White Duke stage persona. Bowie’s addiction to cocaine peaked in this period to the point where he claims to remember almost nothing of this album’s production.
For much of 1976 Bowie would stay awake for days at a time living off a diet of red peppers, milk, and hard drugs, he became obsessed with Satanic symbols, Nazi Germany and the occult even going so far to expressing symphony towards and even promoting fascism in interviews. Soon after making these comments he attempted to reverse them claiming they were “theatrical” remarks made in character as the Thin White Duke and in later years called the period “the darkest days” of his life saying “I was at the end of my tether physically and emotionally and had serious doubts about my sanity” and calling the Duke “a nasty character indeed” and “an ogre”. It’s interesting to see how airbrushed out history a lot of these aspects of Bowie’s career is now, especially when so much iconography and even merchandise t-shirts, posters, etc come from the Think White Duke period which although so controversial politically is often considered one of his most stylish looks.
Bowie’s deterioration around this time stands in stark
contrast to his marketability for the first time he’s being invited on
mainstream television shows all over the USA, his look and image no longer the
gender-bending androgyny of the likes Ziggy Stardust, he was finally being
accepted by middle American and as such he would be invited on talk shows as a
coke raddled guest, even appearing on The Cher Show in 1975 to duet with
the legendary singer. The LA party scene had accepted Bowie and somewhere deep
down inside him he knew that if he stayed with it any longer it would have
killed him and after the end of the 1975 Isolar tour that was promoting this
album he moved to Europe to remove himself from LA drug culture where he
recorded some his most acclaimed work with the Berlin Trilogy of the following
three years.
The album opens with the title track “Station to Station”
and clocking in at 10 minutes 15 seconds it holds the honour as David Bowie’s
longest song. The lyrics of this song and of the entire album can be difficult
to decipher. Opening with a train like noises many mistakenly think the
stations in the track to be references to train stations, however this is a red
herring and it is actually referencing the Stations of the Cross, the series of
images depicting Jesus on the day of his crucifixion, highlighting straight
from the get go the album’s theme of a spiritual journey. The opening lyrics
introduce the character of the Thin White Duke, an emotionless Aryan superman,
“throwing darts into lovers’ eyes”. In the early parts of the track the lyrics
are dark and sinister but as the song continues it morphs into a disco
danceable beat that just almost feels upbeat. The song is considered one of
Bowie’s most important songs and is probably the most direct link the more
experimental styles he could explore on his upcoming Berlin trilogy. Bowie
himself said:
As far as the music goes, Low and its siblings were
a direct follow-on from the title track ‘Station To Station’. It’s often struck
me that there will usually be one track on any given album of mine, which will
be a fair indicator of the intent of the following album.
Then we’ve got the album’s lead single “Golden Years” which
is probably the most accessible song. The track was originally written for
Elvis Presley, who Bowie was a huge fan of and felt a further connection to as
they shared a birthday, but ultimately, he wasn’t interested. Although, Bowie’s
then wife Angie refutes this statement saying the song was written for her in
anticipation of possible recording contract. At this point Bowie’s marriage was
tethering on the brink of collapse and the following year after he moved to
Europe they would become estranged from one another. This funk/soul track has more
in common with Young Americans than the rest of the record and takes
influence from 1950’s doo-wop in its backing vocals. It peaked at number eight
on the UK singles chart.
The album’s most overtly religious track is “Word on a Wing”
which Bowie said was written out of coke-addled spiritual despair while filming
The Man Who Fell to Earth. 1980 Bowie spoke of the song to NME, claiming:
"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."
As a profound plea to God with a real sense of devotion and
earnestness it acts has a counterpoint to much of the darkness that envelopes
other parts of the record and while it does contain one small glimmer of Bowie
holding back with the line, “Just because I believe, don't mean I don't think
as well/Don't have to question everything In heaven or hell” demonstrating he hasn’t
gone full unquestioning Christian on us just yet. I think in terms of
understanding where Bowie was at psychologically at this point it probably is
the most important song on the album and the way it all builds together with
the piano gives me goosebumps, probably my favourite track on the whole record.
Opening up side two is the endlessly danceable “TVC15” this
upbeat art rock song was inspired by drug induced hallucinations of Iggy Pop’s
where he thought his girlfriend was being consumed by a television set. The
song has the feel of a 1950s B-movie and as such the piano backing and backup
vocals and have stylish 50s feel to them as well. Music critic Robert Christgau
called the song a blend of Lou Reed, disco and Dr. John and if that doesn’t
excite you I don’t know what will. The song was released as a single and it
failed to do much but retrospectively it’s considered one of the very best
Bowie songs.
“Stay” is a guitar-based track that expertly mixes funk,
soul and hard rock. The song is about a character begging his lover to stay,
fearing she will leave him forever and shows Bowie at his paranoid cocaine
fuelled peak with the lyrics “maybe I’ll take something to help me, hope
someone takes after me”. The track displays a real sense of self-doubt around
his romantic life which makes sense when you consider this was the period where
he marriage was in steep decline and on it’s way to crumbling altogether. The
track remained a concert staple throughout Bowie’s career playing it right up
until the 2002 Heathen tour even releasing a re-recorded version in 1997.
The album closes with “Wild is the Wind” a song originally
recorded by Johnny Mathis for the 1957 film of the same name. The song was
previously covered by Nina Simone in 1966. Bowie met Simone briefly in 1974 and
they exchanged phone numbers he subsequently called her, and they spoke every
night for a month and became good friends. Bowie said he recorded it as a
tribute to her. This song, along with “Word on a Wing”, stands out as moment of
pure serenity and passion in otherwise quite opaque and cryptic record, I think
they are needed as they give Bowie an opportunity for some real human emotion,
there’s pain in these songs just as there is great pain in Bowie at this point
in time, it’s a sophisticated end to a very personal and veritable album which
explores what it means to be lost and searching.
Upon its release Station to Station was well received
even if many found it allusive and hard to pin down, it was obvious Bowie was
experiment and that his style was continually developing and changing. However,
in modern times the album has been seriously reappraised and many mark it
Bowie’s greatest work with the Guardian’s Alex Needham saying the record manages
to incorporate almost everything fantastic about pop music in just six tracks
it's dramatic, stylish, emotional and danceable".
For me, the album is personal and beautiful the work of a
true artist attempting to push themselves forward creatively and explore
themselves emotionally, it’s searching, it’s genuine, at times subdued, at
times epic. It opened the doors for Bowie to become even more experimental as
the 70s progressed. It’s up there as one of my favourite Bowie albums ever.
Station to Station ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ [10/10]
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