david bowie 1967-1973 thread

Roy Johnson · Post by **Roy Johnson** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 10:22 pm

Inspired by the "Give Me A Classic Rock Lesson" thread. I'll be focusing on anywhere from 60 to 70 songs within the time period of 1967-1973.

I'm gonna start this off with the title track from his 1970 LP "The Man Who Sold The World"

The Man Who Sold The World
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16297503-f41

It was covered brilliantly by Nirvana, but there's no surpassing the Bowie version.

Unfortunately, there are no demos, alternates, or relevant live versions of this track in circulation. He never performed it on BBC radio. That pisses me off to no end, because it might be my favorite Bowie track. It's definitely in my top 5.

malpractice · Post by **malpractice** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 11:10 pm

love love love bowie

LilLeftBrain · Post by **LilLeftBrain** » Thu Dec 01, 2011 11:11 pm

threads always kick ass

Roy Johnson · Post by **Roy Johnson** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:12 am

"Queen Bitch" is one of the stand-out tracks from his 1971 LP "Hunky Dory". There are four different BBC versions, one of which was officially released on the "Bowie At The Beeb" 2CD set. The London 2/8/72 rehearsal tape is a serious gem - it came from a bootleg titled "The Axeman Cometh".

Queen Bitch (LP Version)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16297692-8d4

Queen Bitch (Studio Rehearsal 2-8-72)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16297959-684

Queen Bitch (BBC Official 1-18-72)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16297646-98f

Queen Bitch Folder
Queen Bitch (LP Version)
Queen Bitch (BBC June 1971)
Queen Bitch (BBC 1-11-72)
Queen Bitch (BBC 1-18-72)
Queen Bitch (BBC February 1972)
Queen Bitch (Santa Monica 1/20/72)
Queen Bitch (London 6/5/72)
Queen Bitch Take 1 (Studio Rehearsal 2-8-72)
Queen Bitch Take 2 (Studio Rehearsal 2-8-72)
http://www.mediafire.com/?gzzhhll8vx58du7

The Afronaut · Post by **The Afronaut** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:46 am

Thread.

Roy Johnson · Post by **Roy Johnson** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 4:01 pm

"The Supermen" is my second favorite track from "The Man Who Fell To Earth" LP, but if I only had access to the album version, I wouldn't hold it in a very high regard. The live versions and demos, however, are phenomenal. My personal favorite is the live studio version from the "Glastonbury Fayre" anthology.

The Supermen (Glastonbury Live Studio Version 1971)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16302251-936

The Supermen (BBC Official 9-21-71)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16302262-561

The Supermen Folder
The Supermen (LP Version)
The Supermen (Demo)
The Supermen (BBC 3-25-70)
The Supermen (BBC 6-20-71)
The Supermen (BBC 9-21-71)
The Supermen (Glastonbury Live Studio 1971)
The Supermen (Aylesbury 9-25-71)
The Supermen (Santa Monica 10-20-72)
The Supermen (Cleveland 11-25-72)
The Supermen (New York 2-15-73)
http://www.mediafire.com/?gbnq2ioo8u81fek

Roy Johnson · Post by **Roy Johnson** » Fri Dec 02, 2011 4:55 pm

Bowie's sophomore LP from 1969 was originally released in the UK under the title "David Bowie", which is very confusing because that was also the name of his 1967 debut. The title of the album was then changed to "Man Of Words/Man Of Music" for its US release. It was then re-released worldwide in 1972 under the title "Space Oddity".

Call it whatever you want, but it's a great front-to-back album, and "An Occasional Dream" is one of the highlights.

An Occasional Dream (LP Version)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16302232-5e5

An Occasional Dream (BBC 2-5-70)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16302222-ea7

An Occasional Dream Folder
An Occasional Dream (LP Version)
An Occasional Dream (Demo)
An Occasional Dream (Falmouth 12-26-68)
An Occasional Dream (BBC 2-5-70)
http://www.mediafire.com/?g28kd8npf586enk

Roy Johnson · Post by **Roy Johnson** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 9:23 pm

Here is "Cygnet Committee", which can be found on the Space Oddity LP. He performed it once on BBC radio, but there are no demos or alternate versions in circulation.

Cygnet Committee (BBC 2-5-70)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16321253-939

Cygnet Committee Folder
Cygnet Committee (LP Version)
Cygnet Committee (BBC 2-5-70)
http://www.mediafire.com/?9kgy9hv59oq1cai

b0mbs_of_death · Post by **b0mbs_of_death** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 10:04 pm

b0mbs_of_death · Post by **b0mbs_of_death** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 8:10 am

b0mbs_of_death · Post by **b0mbs_of_death** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 8:13 am

Yeah this is 1974, but this is the last hurrah for rockin Bowie, had to include. Know everybody has heard it, but it's so damn good!

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b0mbs_of_death · Post by **b0mbs_of_death** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 8:16 am

Roy Johnson · Post by **Roy Johnson** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 3:54 pm

Bowie has covered Velvet Underground's excellent "I'm Waiting For The Man" countless times over the course of his career. Here are some of the highlights from his glory years.

Waiting For The Man (1967 Demo)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16619133-c26

Waiting For The Man (BBC 3-16-70)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16619209-519

Waiting For The Man (BBC Official 1-11-72)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16619246-ef2

Waiting For The Man (Santa Monica 10-20-72)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16619285-494

Waiting For The Man Folder
1. Waiting For The Man (1967 Demo)
2. Waiting For The Man (BBC 3-16-70)
3. Waiting For The Man (BBC Official 1-11-72)
4. Waiting For The Man (BBC 1-18-72)
5. Waiting For The Man (Santa Monica 10-20-72)
http://www.mediafire.com/?y7abng6ym6yfuro

Iגm Waiting For the Man

In early December 1966, Bowieגs manager Ken Pitt took Andy Warhol to lunch. Pitt was in New York on a junket and was interested in Warholגs גhouseג group, the Velvet Underground, having designs on being their UK promoter. Warhol stared, made gnomic statements, let Pitt pay for lunch and agreed to let Pitt promote the VU at his own expense (nothing ever came of it). So Warhol gave Pitt an acetate of The Velvet Underground and Nico. When Pitt returned to London a few weeks later, he in turn gave the disc to Bowie, who immediately fell in love.

In particular with side 1, track 2: גIגm Waiting for the Man.ג So far in his career, itגs been hard to find any passionate influences in Bowieגs music, in the way of a performer being in awe of a predecessor and so needing to find means to honor and overcome them (viz.: Dylan with Woody Guthrie, Keith Richards with Chuck Berry, Clapton with Robert Johnson, etc.). But now, all at once, Bowie had found Lou Reed.

Bowieגs first reaction upon discovering the VU was to proselytize: he later claimed that the day after he first heard Velvet Underground and Nico he began to cover its songs and so was the first person to perform גWaiting For the Manג live in the UK, months before the VU record even came out in America. (גNow thatגs the essence of Mod,ג Bowie boasted.)

He also decided to record a cover of גWaiting For the Manג while finishing up his debut LP. The result is an exercise in cross-Atlantic sonic dilution: Reed and Sterling Morrisonגs dirty wall of guitars are replaced in part by a wheezing harmonica and a saxophone mainly repeating two riffs. Worse is the demotion of the piano to mere chirpy accompaniment: in the VU track, John Caleגs spike-driving percussive playing is the sinew and the heart of the piece, the agitated pulserate underneath the singerגs cold reportage. And the studio drummerגs no Mo Tucker. Itגs a pretty atrocious combination and the track was wisely scrapped.

Bowieגs vocal is fascinating mainly in that itגs a shameless attempt (and a fairly decent one, it should be said) to imitate Reedגs deadpan New York singingגthough thereגs some Dylan mixed in there as well.

Bowie latched on to גWaiting for the Manג because, he said later, it felt real, it felt like a dispatch from the streetגone that made Bowieגs own attempts at realism, like גLondon Boys,ג seem like the work of a child. But of course Reed himself was pure middle class, a college graduate who had recorded doo-wop as a teenager and who only a year before was writing cheap pop exploitation songs for a knock-off label. Something like גWaiting for the Manג had as much to do with reading Hubert Selby novels as it did with actual street life, a fact that Bowie would have appreciated had he known it at the time.

Future editions

Bowie would play גWaiting for the Manג for decades. For the BBC alone he cut it four times, including a hard rock 1970 take with Hype (his first glam band) and two 1972 takes with the Spiders From Mars, in which Mick Ronsonגs guitar dominates, so glam shine and swagger supplant the sordid jitter of the original track: it becomes a celebration of The Man, with the junkie left a bystander in his own story. But sometimes when Bowie played the song during his 1972 tour (one version from Santa Monica, in August ג72, was released as a single decades later), he slowed it down and sang it wearily, suggesting the country blues that the song originally was.

His obsessive covering of גWaiting For the Manג (the oddest version is likely the 1976 louche funk edition), year after year, suggests, uncharitably, that Bowie secretly wanted people to think of it as his song, and certainly some who first heard the song during the 1972 Ziggy tour assumed as much.

Itגs more fair to say that גWaiting for the Manג was a song Bowie felt he ought to have written, that he needed to write in order to progress, and so he spent years trying to shake loose its secrets. It became the imported cornerstone of his canon.

The initial studio take was recorded in late December 1966גpossibly Jan.-Feb. 1967; on bootlegs like The Forgotten Songs of David Robert Jones.

http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2009/09 ... r-the-man/

Next up will be a post on Bowie's cover of the Velvet Underground track "White Light/White Heat".

unclebengi · Post by **unclebengi** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:33 pm

Sweeeeeeet

Roy Johnson · Post by **Roy Johnson** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:23 pm

Velvet Underground cover #2 - White Light/White Heat. My favorite one is the official BBC version.

White Light/White Heat (1971 Acetate)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16627971-eb7

White Light/White Heat (BBC Official May 1972)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16628012-f5a

White Light/White Heat (BBC May 1972 #2)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16628066-deb

White Light/White Heat (London 7/3/73)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16628104-4a1

White Light/White Heat Folder
White Light/White Heat (1971 Acetate)
White Light/White Heat (BBC Official May 1972)
White Light/White Heat (BBC May 1972 #2)
White Light/White Heat (London 7/3/73)
http://www.mediafire.com/?db596tb6upukq5b

White Light/White Heat

Covering גWaiting For the Manג gave the young David Bowie a hint of street cred, covering גWhite Light/White Heatג just gave him power. As Bowie and the Spiders honed their live act, they swapped out the likes of גStarmanג and גAndy Warholג for bruising workouts like גWhite Light,ג whose relentless drone rhythm and severity of design (mainly just thrashing on G and D chords, then thrashing on F at the end) made it a hard contrast to the more fanciful Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust songs. It was a staple of the Ziggy tour by May 1972, and Bowie would play it for decades.

Giving prominence to גWhite Light/White Heatג and גWaiting for The Manג also helped Bowie bring Lou Reed into his rapidly-expanding sphere of influence and in July 1972, Reed played his first-ever UK concert as Bowieגs guest. Bowie and Mick Ronson produced Reedגs Transformer* over a manic six weeks in the summer of ג72, working with Reed during the day, playing concerts across the UK at night. Reed, drugged into near-catatonia, needed a translator to understand Ronson; Bowie sometimes was found in the studio bathroom weeping; Ronson did much of the work and his touches are all over the record, like the soaring string arrangement on גPerfect Day.ג

גWhite Light/White Heatג is mainly about the joys of speed, though VU chronicler Richie Unterberger said in a Well interview last year that another possible influence was Alice Baileyגs גA Treatise on White Magic,ג which delves into astral projection גall down a stream of pure White Light.גג (Reed reportedly mentioned the book in radio interviews and Unterberger interviewed a fan who recalled Reed babbling about psychic healing via גlight projection.ג) Bowie likely had no clue about this when he covered the song, though itגs fitting given his own interest in astral projection (גDid You Ever Have a Dreamג). גWhite Lightג was transcendence, chemical or no.

Bowie recorded two versions of גWhite Light/White Heatג in May 1972 for the BBC, and the song was central to the 1972-1973 Ziggy tours; a recording from the last Spiders concert in July 1973 was issued as a single a decade later (RCA 372) to promote the concert film Ziggy Stardust: the Motion Picture. Bowie recorded a version of גWhite Lightג in 1973 for his covers LP Pin-Ups but eventually scrapped it, with Ronson using the backing track for his own cover on 1975′s Play Donגt Worry.

* Itגs been repeatedly claimed, even in credible Bowie biographies like Strange Fascination, that Bowie secretly wrote גWagon Wheel,ג a forgotten track on Reedגs Transformer. To my knowledge, this is bunk (seriously, גWagon Wheelג?), and there appears to be some proof dispelling the rumorגa tape allegedly exists of Reed singing גWagon Wheelג in New York in 1971, a time when he had only met Bowie once at a nightclubגbut doubtless this bizarre legend will persist for decades to come.

http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2010/05 ... hite-heat/

Roy Johnson · Post by **Roy Johnson** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 1:34 pm

Here's an unreleased track that Bowie recorded in 1970, titled "Right On Mother". I like this one mostly for its comedic value.

and now you're telling me you understand....that I'm a maaaaaaan

Excellent refrain.

Right On Mother (1970 Demo)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16633150-3b7

Right On Mother

גRight On Motherג is something of an answer record to גOh! You Pretty Things,ג bridging the generation gap depicted in the latter. Itגs also a happier remake of גUncle Arthur,ג in which the parent, rather than sabotaging her sonגs relationship with his new girl, is instead welcoming of it.

Still, thereגs also something disturbing about the song, whether in the boyגs elation that his mother knows גIגm a man!!!ג or the last lines, where the singer apparently dumps his girl off so he can spend the night with mum.

Recorded ca. late 1970-January 1971 (some websites list it as a 1968 recording, which doesnגt seem to fitגit was obviously part of the demo package that Chrysalis Music sent to Peter Noone in late 1970/early ג71). Noone recorded it as the B-side to גWalnut Whirlג (RAK 121, October 1971) with Bowie on piano.

http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/tag/right-on-mother/

Roy Johnson · Post by **Roy Johnson** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 1:10 pm

Here is yet another solid non-album track, titled "Shadow Man". It was recorded in September of 1971, which was shortly before Bowie developed the Ziggy Stardust concept.

Shadow Man (1971 Outtake)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16639392-609

Shadow Man

גShadow Manג was demoed in an early session for a Hunky Dory sequel LP. As Bowie had yet to develop the Ziggy Stardust concept, the new record began as a random collection of songs, including some Arnold Corns leftovers, remakes of גHoly Holyג and גThe Supermen,ג Biff Rose, Chuck Berry and Jacques Brel covers, and a couple new pieces (which include גItגs Gonna Rain Againג and גOnly One Paper Left,ג tracks the bootleggers still havenגt unearthed).

Bowie soon shelved the Neil Young-influenced גShadow Manג once the Ziggy concept took hold and never attempted a full studio version. While its messiah-superhero title figure seems like a rough draft of the Ziggy character, גShadow Manג comes off a bit stale, hobbled by the dreary earnestness of its lyric and its plodding tempo.

Recorded on 14 September 1971 and never released. In 2000, Bowie cut a grandiose revision of גShadow Manג for his aborted Toy LP and later issued it as a B-side of the 2002 singles גSlow Burnג and גEveryone Says גHiג.ג

http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/shadow-man/

Roy Johnson · Post by **Roy Johnson** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 6:27 pm

Here's another song from the "Space Oddity" LP. I'll be doing posts for every track on that album.

God Knows I'm Good (LP Version)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16655950-b17

God Knows I'm Good (BBC Official February 1970)
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http://www.divshare.com/download/16655989-ff4

I prefer the BBC Version.

God Knows I'm Good Folder
1. God Knows I'm Good (LP Version)
2. God Knows I'm Good (BBC Official February 1970)
http://www.mediafire.com/?yjr07yucz620rxb

God Knows I'm Good

Oscar Wildeגs quip that גall bad poetry springs from genuine feelingג (often misremembered as גall bad poetry is sincereג) applies to rock songs as well. A case in point: Keith Christmas, one of the guitarists on the Space Oddity LP, recalls Bowie weeping uncontrollably while listening to a playback of גGod Knows Iגm Good.ג

A poor old woman in a modern supermarket (the kind that has גcash machinesג that are both גspittingג and גshriekingגגsurprised they arenגt גvomitingג as well) shoplifts a can of stew. As she goes to the door, a security officer nabs her. She cries out גGod Knows Iגm Good!ג (repeat 50 times) and falls to the floor. To hammer the point home, we also get some snide asides about all the גhonest peopleג who smugly walk past her unknowing, and of course the backdrop of our tale is the Horror of Modern Consumer Societyגsoulless machines, roaring money, that sort of thing.

Itגs all cheap, adolescent sentiment, with the lyric focused on a pathetic paper figure intended to generate sympathyגBowie even made the old creature deaf to make her more woeful. Where גConversation Pieceג (a vastly superior track this thing mightגve knocked off the LP, as the two songs have some similarities) has richness and restraint in its character study, גGod Knows Iגm Goodג just makes empty, loud demands and soon wears down its listenersג patience. The chorus is appalling, and the 20 bars or so of guitar busking at the end complete the illusion that a three-minute track has lasted as long as an entire LP.

Recorded ca. August-September 1969; on Space Oddity.

https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/tag/god-knows-im-good/

I don't necessarily agree with all of these reviews, but I'll still post 'em, for the sake of comedy if nothing else. LOL at weeping uncontrollably during playback.