Subterraneans

This article is about the David Bowie song. For other uses, see Subterranean (disambiguation).
"Subterraneans"
Song by David Bowie from the album Low
Released January 14, 1977
Recorded December 1975, Cherokee Studios, Los Angeles[1]
Genre Ambient
Length 5:39
Label RCA
Writer(s) David Bowie
Producer(s) David Bowie and Tony Visconti
Low track listing

Weeping Wall
(10)		 "Subterraneans"
(11)

"Subterraneans" is a song by David Bowie, the closing track of his 1977 album Low. "Subterraneans" is mostly instrumental, with brief, obscure lyrics sung near the song's end.

"Subterraneans" was meant to invoke the misery of those in East Berlin during the Cold War. According to Bowie, people who "got caught in East Berlin after the separation - hence the faint jazz saxophones representing the memory of what it was."[2]

Musical characteristics

After the Station to Station sessions ended in November 1975 at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, David Bowie recorded "Subterraneans" within those studios in December 1975.[1] The song later received overdubs by Brian Eno.

The sleeve notes of Low credit "Peter and Paul with additional ARP synthesizer and piano." The "Peter and Paul" mentioned are Peter Robinson, who played Fender Rhodes, and Paul Buckmaster (the composer of the string arrangements for the Rolling Stones' "Moonlight Mile (song)") who played the ARP Odyssey.[3] Peter Robinson and Paul Buckmaster worked with Bowie at Cherokee Studios in late 1975 on the aborted movie soundtrack to the Man Who Fell to Earth.

"Subterraneans" was ultimately the most heavily edited song on Low, with David Bowie's saxophone, as well as multilayered synthesizers and reversed instrument sounds from Brian Eno, floating underneath a moaned vocal which is wordless until around the final ninety seconds. The soundscapes contain a cinematic quality which evokes the feel of Miles Davis' landmark album In a Silent Way.[1]

Lyrics

The lyrics are amongst Bowie's most inaccessible and obscure. Bowie reports[4] that during the recording of Low he was "intolerably bored" with conventional narrative rock and roll lyrics. The lyrics of "Subterraneans" utilize the "cut-up" technique which Bowie had previously used and expressed admiration for.

According to the liner notes to the 1999 Virgin Records rerelease of Low, the lyrics are:

Share bride failing star
care-line
care-line
care-line
care-line riding me
Shirley, Shirley, Shirley, own
Share bride failing star

Live versions

Personnel

Cover versions

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Thomas Jerome Seabrook (2008). Bowie in Berlin: A New Career in a New Town: pp.131-132
  2. ↑ Griffin, R. "Low." Bowie Golden Years (Jan). 2005 retrieved 12 June 2007
  3. 1 2 3 Mojo (magazine). 60 Years of Bowie.
  4. ↑ Low "Low, The Alienation: A lyrical interpretation by Jonathan Greatorex (15-Apr-2000) URL retrieved 12 June 2007

Sources

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