My Favorite Albums: "Station to Station" - David Bowie
- Niyam
- Oct 23, 2019
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 7, 2021
I'd thought I'd start writing about my favorite albums on here, seeing as the new album releases for the rest of the year (at least the only ones I know about) don't really catch my eye. I'll probs do a handful of these, since there's only two months left in the year. If you like them, added bonus for me I guess.
For the life of me, I couldn't tell you my "greatest album of all time", because frankly I don't believe you should have one. I personally believe it should change at different points in your life, depending on your circumstances. For a while, I thought that Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars was the best concept album of all time. But then I was talking to my guitar instructor and we had a good conversation about it. He said that he personally believes that Pink Floyd's The Wall is the best concept album and after going home and listening to both albums back to back, I started to adopt his sentiments. The moral I'm trying to show here is that going and finding out other people's thoughts and opinions is one of the most rewarding things you can do, yet still some people remain stubborn and close-minded. A similar thing happened to me with this album. I always believed that Low was Bowie's best album (still kinda do actually). Whenever I find artists or bands I like, I try to dig as deep as I can into their discography. I did this with Bowie the first time I heard "Under Pressure" by Queen (fun fact: "Under Pressure" wouldn't have happened if Freddie Mercury hadn't settled to a chance jam session with Bowie. Bowie was trying to get inspiration for his upcoming album which would be his major 80s breakthrough Let's Dance. He was in Switzerland and by chance so was Queen, so they met up and Bowie even came up with that iconic bass riff in the beginning of the song, which is a little detail that most people miss because most of them have watched Bohemian Rhapsody, which shows that John Deacon came up with the riff randomly. I'm putting this here so that when somebody brings up some sort of dumb trivia about Queen or Bowie, just say this and you'll look really smart.) because I loved his voice. I found "Space Oddity", "Heroes", and a bunch of other classics from him by digging but Low always seemed like a masterpiece to me. However, I stayed away from Station to Station. I don't know why, maybe it was the album cover or the fact that there was only 6 songs on the album. It was that kinda album that was just there. It didn't have the glam-rock that The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars had, it didn't have the iconic lightning strike on the face that Aladdin Sane did, and it didn't have that "plastic soul" feel that Young Americans and Diamond Dogs had. So what exactly did this album have that makes me consider it as one of my favorite albums? Lemme explain.
In the 70s, Bowie had many personas. Of course there's Ziggy Stardust, the alien rockstar who came to Earth with his back-up band The Spiders From Mars to warn Earth that the planet would be destroyed in 5 years. (hence the name of the first song on the album: "5 Years") Then after the massive amount of press he got from proclaiming that he was gay (he never was: he was married to a woman when he said he was gay) He started toying with the idea of using costumes on stage to convey a persona. Almost 4 years passed, and he still didn't have a persona on par with Ziggy Stardust. Then he started cocaine. In a lot of interviews, Bowie said that he started cocaine because he needed a "spark". The "spark" he wanted culminated into Station to Station. During the tour for Young Americans, he started debuting his new persona: the Thin White Duke. Many fans were displeased, as this new persona did not have red high heels, ambigious costumes, or the makeup of the glam god Ziggy Stardust. But there was a reason for this new "character". Right before the release of Station to Station, Bowie was acting for the main role in Nicolas Roeg's new movie titled "The Man Who Fell To Earth" (Bowie was aptly picked, since he was the most alien thing the Brits have ever seenup to that point) His character in the movie, Thomas Jerome Newton, is a humanoid alien who came to Earth to get water for his dying planet. Newton's clothing inspired Bowie's Thin White Duke look. The cover of the album is actually a still picture from the movie, although the album was never meant to come out in a "bundle-pack" with the movie. However, during the production of the movie and the sessions for the album, Bowie relied heavily on cocaine. In several interviews from the 80s, he mentions how he survived on a diet of "chili peppers, cocaine, and milk." So Station to Station was released on January 23rd, 1973 and became (and still is) Bowie's highest charting album in America, with it reaching number 3 and staying there for a solid 32 weeks. This was the first time one of Bowie's albums charted higher in the U.S. than in his home country, the U.K. (it only peaked at number 5 there) Rolling Stone and Playboy magazine couldn't seem to come to a conclusion on the album, as they contradicted themselves in their reviews. Rolling Stone however lists it in their "Top 500 Albums of All Time" list. I'll give you a real review of it though, don't worry.
This is just a track-by-track analysis of the songs and their lyrics. Skip if you just want that "big picture" statement
Station to Station - The title track is the first song on the album and many people argue that it is one of Bowie's best songs. I happen to agree. The song itself is 10 minutes long, with some remasters cutting it down to about 9. It's extremely experimental, going from a sample of an incoming train to a slow bass and piano-driven intro that sounds like a prog-rock march to a seemingly happy chorus. The opening lyrics "The return of the Thin White Duke/ Throwing darts in lovers' eyes" is beatifully haunting and sets the tone for the whole track and the album pretty much. The happy chorus mentioned earlier really only sounds happier since it has a higher tempo. The lyrics are actually kinda depressing. The lyrics "It's not the side effects of the cocaine/ I'm thinking that it must be love" can be taken very seriously, considering his cocaine usage. He was probably self-aware at this point, and he was really only taking cocaine as an energy method to keep himself up while recording the album. The track starts trailing off when he keeps repeating "It's too late to be grateful/ It's too late to be late again/ It's too late to be hateful," which I think is a great anxiety-filled way to lead into the next track.
Golden Years - This was the highest peaking single on teh album, reaching number 13 in the U.K. It's a sort-of tie-in with Young Americans and Diamond Dogs, except it's just more edgier. The funk and soul from those albums was taken and Bowie just replaced a regular guitar with a more distorted guitar and a huskier voice. The flow and groove of the song are really great, it never feels like there's a beat or lyric that doesn't fit in with the improvising guitars. I love the lyric "In walked luck and you looked in time/ never look back, walk tall, act fine" specifically because it was sort of a mantra fro him back then. He never once looked back at what he was doing, he just kept doing what he wanted to do. And in the chorus, the lyric "I'll stick with you baby for a thousand years/ Nothing's gonna touch you in these golden years" is repeated just for him to use his falsetto and it really works. The gritty funk does well with a little high pitched voice here and there.
Word on a Wing - Right off the bat, we know the tempo is pretty slow compared to the last two tracks and there's this accompanying piano that just kinda "lifts" his voice along. I love this song, mainly because its the cliched "piano ballad" that I'm such a sucker for. The first lyric "In this age of grand illusion/ You walked into my life put of my dreams/ I don't need another change/ Still, you forced a way into my scheme of things," is a great opener simply because of the tone he uses it in. You know he's talking about falling love, but he's using that weird, stone-cold, calculated point of view to describe it. The chorus, "Lord, I kneel and offer you my word on a wing/ And I'm trying hard to fit among your scheme of things/ But it's dafer than in a strange land, but I still care for myself/ And I don't stand in my own light." The Christian element can be seen here, but that doesn't really matter in the sense that the whole song has a hymn-like feel. In later interviews, Bowie mentioned the song and said it was made during on of the "darkest periods of his life" and that it was "surely a cry for help". I think that tells you all you need to know about it really.
TVC15 - When I first heard this song, I was sure that I heard it somewhere on TV before. It has that "cowboy-saloon-Full House" vibe to it if y'know what I mean. The lyrics are barely understood and are mainly used as a way to give the instrumental more "oomph". However, there's a part when it's switching into the chorus and he legit just sings "Transition" over and over again. Or at least that's what I thought. I looked ta the lyrics again and I found out that he's actually saying "Transmission" on every other line. I thought it was kinda funny, since he's literally singing "Transition" over the transition of the song. Anyway, it's more of a funky track and it's really good at building up to that chorus.
Stay - Extremely underrated song. It's probably my favorite on the whole album. And y'know why? There's a lotta crunchy guitars and the grittiness is really exemplified and used on this track. The melody that he's singing on has an uncertain feel to it that it really uses to its advantage since the chorus is him just kinda whining/wailing at something that seems far off. The way he says the lyric "'Cause you can never really tell when somebody/ wants something you want too," gives me chills every time I listen to it: it's just THAT good.
Wild is the Wind - This song is actually not written by Bowie. It's from a 1957 film that he really liked. I adore this track. It's the definition of hauntingly beautiful for me. The passion he puts into singing this song is unreal. My favorite part is where all the intrumentals stop for a couple of seconds, and he just says they lyric"Don't you know? You're life itself." It's the second and last time I get chills on this album, since it's also the closing number. It ends the album on a solemn tone, but with just enough hope to the point where it doesn't seem pointless.
The album invokes a somber, yet gritty mood that still manages to sound hopeful and fun. The guitars are used to a point where it borders between being called experimental or rock. But it really doesn't matter what the genre is, because the album uses the tone to it's advantage.
And that's it. Station to Station was my first vinyl ever. I clean the vinyl religiously to the point where some people would call me crazy right on the spot. But now you know why. I would also like to say that in the last year of his life, Bowie made a Broadway play called Lazarus. It was a supposed continuation of "The Man Who Fell to Earth", and from what I've seen online, it looks great. I also hold Blackstar (his final album that was released two days before he died) in extremely high regard, but I usually can't bring myself to listen to it because it always manages to make me cry. So does "Wild is the Wind." I know most people don't listen to albums fully through, so the main takeaways from this album (if you really want them, I still highly recommend listening to this album in its full glory) are the songs "Golden Years", "Station to Station", "Stay", and "Wild is the Wind." Thanks for reading all this by the way. Means a lot, since I'm kinda just ranting on an album that's almost 40 years old.
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