You've got your mother in a whirl...
This day in Bowie history sees the release of three David Bowie singles. The most recent of these was the title track to the film 'Absolute Beginners' in 1986, to my mind one of Bowie's most emotionally charged ballads, with that heart-wrenching chorus....'If a love song, could fly over mountains....' Beautiful.
This was preceded by the release on Feb 15th 1980 of the 'Alabama Song'/'Space Oddity' single. A wonderfully quirky cover of the old Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht song made famous by The Doors but taken that one step closer to strange by this version recorded by David's 1978 touring band. The flip side was a sparse piano, drums, guitar and vocal re-recording of 'Space Oddity'. Dismissed by the horribly hairy Radio 1 DJ DLT as a con at the time, this was a rather brave stripped down version of the song that I have to say I prefer to the original. DLT's denouncement of the song only proving further what a stylish version it must be!
The third of these classic releases 26 years ago was the sublime teen anthem 'Rebel Rebel'. Claiming to be a Valentine day release, (click on the top image for original press ad.) but actually released the following day, 'Rebel Rebel' was issued as two different singles. A mix of the album version was the standard release, but a completely different mix quietly escaped in very limited quantities in the US. Closer to the live '74 version, this was the general favourite among fans.
Hot tramp I love you so...
Total Blam Blam - (European Correspondent)