Track 83: Bombers (Bowpromo version)
Here is Bombers: the great ‘lost’ track of the Hunky Dory sessions. OK – not so much lost, as simply dropped from the final cut of the album! (Along with another track… but more on that in a moment). But it was so close… As Hunky Dory was being mixed, Bowie’s manager Tony Defries jumped a plane to New York looking for a better contract for his new protégé. In his hands were some early mixes of some of the album tracks. Defries had got 500 copies of a white label made to distribute to potential record companies, and in the USA, hearing the songs, RCA bit. The unofficial name of the white label has become known as Bowpromo (from the cutter’s mark on the vinyl run out, and despite the B Side having a number of tracks by Dana Gillespie, another of Defries’ artists - see trackbytrack 81). Five of the Bowie cuts would make it on to Hunky Dory in slightly different mixes, although Eight Line Poem has an earlier vocal from Bowie too (see more stuff below). Bombers wouldn’t make it, and nor would the cover It Ain’t Easy – which, however (as we of course know), would resurface on the Ziggy Stardust album! Unlike Bombers, which would never be seen again. A musical hall tune harking back in tone (if not execution) to David Bowie (1967), it is satire on politics and war, catchy as hell, and with some superbly mannered vocals from Bowie. The Bowpromo version – which concludes the running order of tracks – also ends with the intro to Andy Warhol (which may well indicate where it would have sat on Hunky Dory). There’s an early demo of the track out there, and a later (and only slight different) mix without the Bowpromo outro (again, see more stuff below). It was also played live in a session for the BBC (see trackbytrack 80) earlier in the year. Why was it dropped? Why was it never used even for a B side? No one really knows…
‘Bombers’: Track 7 of Bowpromo - unreleased white lable. Cut in late July 1971. Written by David Bowie. Re-released in 2017, and available on various websites.
More stuff:
Bombers on Pushing Ahead of the Dame
Bombers (alternate mix) on Youtube. And available on The Man Who Sold The World album extended edition.
…and Bowpromo running order:
Oh! You Pretty Things (alt mix) not on Youtube, but biozine
Eight Line Poem
(alt mix and different vocals) on Youtube
Kooks
(alt mix) on Youtube
It Ain’t Easy
(alt mix) on Youtube
Queen Bitch
(alt mix) on Youtube
Quicksand
(alt mix) on Youtube
Bombers (with Andy Warhol outro) - see above