The date was a Sunday and I was living in a terraced house in Bristol, south of the city centre. I'd been living with my girlfriend for a few years. I think at this point we knew it wasn't a lifelong relationship and we were on a downward slide of unhappiness. We made it into the new millennium, barely, though things ended on a sour note not long after.
Fast forward to 16th May 2002 (a Thursday, if you're counting) and I woke up in a beautiful hotel on the beach in Mauritius, celebrating my first full day of marriage to the wonderful Mrs. K. Three years previously, I couldn't have imagined feeling this happy.
One thing we all have in common is a love of David Bowie. In 1999, between me and my girlfriend, we owned less than a dozen of his albums. This paltry collection included one of those budget CDs compiling Bowies pre-Space Oddity 1960s material and didn't stretch past 1980's Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).
Most of them belonged to my girlfriend and most of them were the Sound + Vision CD reissues from the early 1990s with a clutch of bonus tracks. My vinyl copy of ...Ziggy Stardust... was similarly a reissue with extra tracks which, good though they were, on reflection made for a less satisfying side 1/2 track listing and listening experience.
These constraints did help when it came to compiling a Bowie C90 cassette, however. Seems sacrilegious now but not owning Aladdin Sane, The Lodger, Hunky Dory or Diamond Dogs made the job of selecting a dozen or so songs for each side a bit easier.
So, what you'll find are some really obvious choices. For me, there were never any other opening and closing songs for this side than Golden Years and Sound And Vision. In between, more personal favourites, a couple of album tracks, a cover version and a re-recorded version of Panic In Detroit that, if pushed, I will say that I prefer to the original.
Although this was recorded in a less than happy environment back in 1999, Bowie's music transports me to a much happier place and memories of the good times that we had and the happiness that I've known since.
Now before you reach for your buckets, here's the track listing and links to (nearly) 46 minutes of Bowie brilliance. Enjoy!
1) Golden Years (Album Version) (1976)
2) God Knows I'm Good (Album Version) (1969)
3) John, I'm Only Dancing (Single Version) (1972)
4) Up The Hill Backwards (Album Version) (1980)
5) Sorrow (Album Version) (Cover of The McCoys) (1973)
6) Young Americans (Album Version) (1975)
7) Starman (Album Version) (1972)
8) TVC 15 (Album Version) (1976)
9) All The Madmen (Album Version) (1972)
10) Panic In Detroit (Re-Recorded Version) (1979)
11) Suffragette City (Album Version) (1972)
12) Sound And Vision (Album Version) (1977)
1969: Space Oddity: 2
1972: The Man Who Sold The World: 9
1972: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars: 7, 11
1973: Pin Ups: 5
1975: Young Americans: 6
1976: Station To Station: 1, 8
1977: Low: 12
1980: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps): 4
1990: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (Sound + Vision Expanded Edition): 3
1992: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (Sound + Vision Expanded Edition): 10
You can't go wrong with Bowie, It has been decades since I heard 'god knows I'm good' memories come flooding back, my first Bowie album was Aladdin Sane and then I saved pocket money to work back from that.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mark. I was a very late starter with Bowie, albums-wise. The vinyl reissue of Ziggy was my first, around 1992/1993, I think. I was able to get most of the Sound + Vision reissues secondhand on CD, plus the Nineties and 21st Century albums as they came out. Speaking of which reminded me of the rather excellent late period ICA you provided over at The Vinyl Villain last year.
DeleteI'm the lucky one. I only had Scary Monsters on vinyl when I moved in with the now Mrs JC in 1990....I had never really ever been one for buying old albums up to or at that stage in my life. Mrs JC didn't have too many records to boast about (most were kept by her first husband) but she did have Bowie/Iggy/Lou Reed albums galore, many of them as first editions from the 70s.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, I reckon that's a damn fine mix on offer.
Bowie, Iggy and Lou, that would be enough to win my heart!
ReplyDelete