Bruna. 28. Bisexual. Brazil. I've got a film degree.
Sometimes I post mature content, so I'll ask to only follow me if you're 18+.
This is a multifandom blog. Expect lots of Hannibal and Star Trek. Also Vampire Chronicles. Lots of movies. There will be on occasion rock bands and singers. Also books and TV shows and random stuff.
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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.
Track 82: Oh! You Pretty Things (BBC Sound Of The Seventies: 21-09-71)
Hunky Dory was in the can, and as the machinery geared up for its release, Bob Harris at the BBC offered Bowie a studio session. This broadcast is unique – and utterly brilliant. Just Bowie and (guitarist, pianist and arranger) Ronson. Very minimalist – unplugged before Unplugged. The songs are presented at their most stripped down, but more than that, this session is illustrative of the importance Ronson had taken in Bowie’s life and craft. David Bowie is – at this point of time, and for the next few years – Bowie and Ronno. And here it’s Bowie and Ronson on acoustic guitars; or Bowie on acoustic and Ronson on electric, or bass; or Ronson on piano and Bowie’s voice, and so on. The tracks on the session include two oldies (one from The Man Who Sold the World, one a fave old cover) and five from the new album (again, one of which is a cover). Although two songs were not broadcast (see more stuff below) Amongst the cuts is Oh! You Pretty Things. It was the demo of this song – with Bowie moving to the piano as compositional tool – that kicked off the Hunky Dory period and then led to Bowie’s second hit – albeit only as songwriter for someone else (Peter Noone - see trackbytrack 76). This recording is the oldest release of the track with Bowie at the helm (it had been played live at the BBC Bowie and friends concert back in June, but it was never broadcast, and is now lost - see trackbytrack 80). Here it is just Ronson on piano and Bowie’s voice. Beautiful… beautiful… beautiful…
‘Oh! You Pretty Things’: Track 2 of Sound Of The Seventies: Bob Harris (21-09-71). Broadcast 4 October 1971. Written by David Bowie. Available on various bootlegs.
And I’ll break you Because I lose myself inside you, I’ll make you Fit in the space that I provide you, I’ll take you, Oh yes, I’ll take you just to push you far away, away, away
The moth don’t care if the flame burns low The moth believes in an afterglow And flames are never doused completely All you really need is the love of heat
