bowietrackbytrack:

Track 86: Eight Line Poem (album version)

Eight Line Poem is a kind of tonal companion piece to Oh! You Pretty Things – and when the latter is played the former most usually follows. Such is the situation with the Bowpromo disk (see trackbytrack 83 – which has an alternative vocal); with the radio session in September of ’71 (see trackbytrack 82); and – as we’ll see – live. One song leads into the other – and while Oh! You Pretty Things is sci-fi Nietzsche and bouncy chorus, Eight Line Poem is the most quiet and gentle moment of Hunky Dory, with the most enigmatic of lyrics. An under furnished room in the city, a cactus and a cat. The piano shimmers with a trippy chorus effect and Ronson’s country guitar introduces the song before Bowie’s voice enters the frame. Often overlooked or passed by, Eight Line Poem has one of the most wonderful of Bowie’s vocal performances ever – fragile, affected, weird. A fragment… composed of fragments. A scattering of images…

‘Eight Line Poem’: Track 3 of the Hunky Dory album. Released 17 December 1971. Written by David Bowie. Available on Hunky Dory (1971).

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More stuff:

Eight Line Poem on Pushing Ahead of the Dame