The 500 - #324 - Station To Station - David Bowie

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 324

Album Title: Station To Station

Artist: David Bowie

Genre: Art Rock

Recorded: Two Studios, Los Angeles, USA

Released: January, 1976

My age at release: 10

How familiar was I with it before this week: Fairly

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #53 - moving up 272 places

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Stay

When I finally saw a David Bowie record coming up on The 500 list, I was delighted. Bowie was an artist who, throughout his 54-year career in music, stayed ahead of the curve by being the curve. Indeed, he was ahead of his time. Bowie shaped a unique trajectory through the world of music; in fashion; pop culture; and art – unrivaled by any artist of his generation.

Illustrations capturing Bowie's looks, 1964 - 2014

There is a gif (an animated image file) that cycles through 50 years of Bowie's signature looks in a series of illustrations displayed repeatedly over six seconds. It can be found here. It is mesmerizing, but also a bit overwhelming, so I have not embedded it on my blog page. The stills from the animation can be found in the picture above.

Illustration from Bowie's "Thin White Duke" period

Station To Station, released in January, 1976, was a time in Bowie's career dubbed his "Thin White Duke phase". Earlier, in the summer of 1973, Bowie toured extensively in his Ziggy Stardust persona -- an androgynous, alien rock star who has come to a dying and demoralized Earth to deliver a message of hope.

Bowie performing on stage in his Ziggy Stardust persona

During a concert at the Hammersmith Odeon Theatre in London, England, Bowie, as Ziggy, closed the concert with the statement:

 "Of all the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest, because not only is it the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do."

Obviously, this created much media attention, with some thinking that the 25-year-old Bowie was retiring from music. However, the singer moved to Los Angeles shortly after and began working on his eighth studio record, Diamond Dogs. (Which was also the first Bowie record I owned).

Diamond Dogs album cover (1974)

A new character emerged for the 78-show promotional tour. In part, this new identity, "Halloween Jack", drew inspiration from George Orwell's dystopian, social-science fiction novel, 1984. He was an eyepatch-wearing, red-mulleted rocker who was identified on Diamond Dogs as "a real cool cat" who "lives on top of Manhattan Chase" in the semi-fictional "Hunger City".

Bowie in his Halloween Jack persona

However, it was The Thin White Duke who manifested as Bowie's darkest and most troubling character, first appearing on-stage during Bowie’s tour for the 1975 record Young Americans.

Young Americans (1975)

Bowie’s alien entity was conceived, in part, from the character of Thomas Jerome Newton, played by Bowie in the 1976 film The Man Who Fell To Earth (a film I first saw on VHS in the early 80s.) In the British science fiction cult-classic, Bowie portrayed an extraterrestrial who arrives on Earth seeking water for his drought-stricken home planet. Adopting a human identity, he shares advanced technology from his planet and enjoys the wealth and popularity this brings, while working covertly to build a spaceship for his return home. However, the alien Newton becomes transfixed by the distractions of Earth, including, sex, alcohol, television and religion.

The look of Bowie's Thin White Duke shares much with the titular character from the 1976 film. The Duke has perfectly coiffed hair, slicked back from his brow like some sort of Alien Aryan. Replacing the brightly coloured glam-rock clothes of his former incarnations, The Duke wears a simple "cabaret-style" outfit consisting of a white shirt, black slacks and matching waistcoat.

Bowie on tour as The Thin White Duke (1977)

Borrowing in part from the magician Propero's famous speech in Shakespeare's The Tempest, he announces himself immediately on the opening, title track of the record, Station To Station:

"The return of the Thin White Duke
Throwing darts in lovers' eyes
Here are we, one magical moment, such is the stuff
From where dreams are woven."

As with his other characters, Bowie immersed himself fully into this persona such that the line between artist and character were blurred. Press interviews were with The Duke, not Bowie, and "both" were clearly impacted by his "astronomical” use of hard drugs -- particularly cocaine. Bowie  later reported he remembered little from the recording sessions.

The Thin White Duke performing in Toronto (1978)

Controversy began as the line between art and artist remained blurred. In an interview, Bowie, as The Duke, made pro-fascist statements, even commenting that "Hitler was one of the first rock stars". He added: “You’ve got to have an extreme right-wing front come up and sweep everything off its feet and tidy everything up.”

In retrospect, it is clear Bowie did not mean what he said -- The Thin White Duke was "a hollow man, singing songs about romance with an agonizing intensity while feeling nothing". The character was pure artistry -- in fact, a clown.

Paul Legrande in the role of Peirrot (1855)

The character was also inspired in part by Pierrot, the "sad clown" archetype from Commedia Dell'Arte, one of the earliest forms of comedic theatre and social commentary from 16th century Italy. Bowie confirmed this in a later interview, stating:

 "I'm Everyman. What I'm doing is theatre and only theatre ... What you see on stage isn't sinister. It's pure clown. I'm using myself as a canvas and trying to paint the truth of our time on it. The white face, the baggy pants – they're Pierrot, the eternal clown putting over the great sadness.

There is so much more going on with this record. Far too much to document in a single blog post. The musical styles are incredibly diverse, ranging from soulful ballads to funk to early German industrial (a style of music that fuses industrial sounds with instrumentation -- becoming popular initially in Germany in the late 60s).

Furthermore, the lyrics include references to Kabala -- a school of Jewish mysticism that focuses on various "stations" on the path to wisdom and enlightenment. Hence the title, Station To Station.

The paths to stations of wisdom on
the Sefirot or Tree of Life in the
Kabala Mysticism

If you want to learn more, I highly recommend this comprehensive video on YouTube by Polyphonic.

Although he did not officially retire the Thin White Duke character, Bowie moved from the drug scene in Los Angeles to Switzerland and eventually to Germany in early 1977. It was there he began work on his Berlin Trilogy (Low, Heroes and The Lodger). Some speculate the cover art on the last record in this series marked the demise of a character Bowie would later refer to as "an ogre" -- once stating: "This was a very dangerous period for me...I was at the end of my tether physically and emotionally and had serious doubts about my sanity.’

The Lodger album cover, #3 in The Berlin Trilogy (1979)

Was The Thin White Duke a put-on or did this fascist-leaning cabaret persona inhabit Bowie during a time when he struggled with drug addiction and mental health in his late-twenties?

The compelling thing for Bowie’s fans is that the answers will never be known. One simply chooses to join this fascinating individual on his 69-year earth-bound journey as he carved his unique trajectory through music, fashion and pop-culture.

A meme that circulated shortly after Bowie's death in 2016

We'll return to David Bowie in 45 weeks when we look at Bowie during his late-Ziggy phase, with his sixth studio release, Aladdin Sane. 

Aladdin Sane (#279 on The 500)