Bruna. 28. Bisexual. Brazil. I've got a film degree.
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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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Track 78: Hang On to Yourself (The Arnold Corns single version)
The B side to The Arnold Corns single Moonage Daydream is another track that would triumphantly resurface in the Ziggy period (in more ways than one): Hang On to Yourself. In February 1971 Bowie went to the USA for the first time as a guest of Mercury records, playing a few intimate solo gigs to promote the recently released The Man Who Sold the World album. While there, Bowie ran into the legendary rock ‘n’ roller Gene Vincent at a recording studio. Let’s see what you’ve got and have a jam, says Vincent! Bowie had the basics of three new tracks in his head, Ziggy Stardust, Moonage Daydream and Hang On to Yourself – Vincent chose the Eddie Cochrane infused Hang On to Yourself and they jammed it out and cut a demo. Bowie forgot about all this until the son of Tom Ayers, the producer, came across a recording and sent a copy over (see more stuff below). All of which is a bit of a tangent, but tangents are fine! The Arnold Corns is itself a tangent! With Bowie back in the UK, the track was chosen as backing to Moonage Daydream (trackbytrack 77). We know the song so well from the Ziggy-Ronson version, but The Arnold Corns’ version has a real charm, with a whispery, slinky, sleaziness to it, replete with its Bolan-esque panting. In short – it would still be a classic even if not given a new lease of life, along with new lyrics, in the Stardust phase… And indeed, B&G records would go on to release it as an A Side – without Bowie’s permission – in the wake of The Spiders from Mars exploding in late 1972! But more of that a little later…
‘Hang On to Yourself’: The B Side to the Moonage Daydream
Single. Written by David Bowie. Single released 7 May 1971.
Available on Five Years (1969–1973) boxset on Re:Call 1
Track 77: Moonage Daydream (The Arnold Corns single version)
Moonage Daydream – Bowie’s fourteenth single – was released under the moniker The Arnold Corns mid ‘71. It was the first time Bowie had put out a record without his own name front and centre since 1965. Manager Tony Defries was trying to extract Bowie from his contract with Mercury, so he couldn’t release singles under his own name. So: The Arnold Corns (a name cobbled together from a Pink Floyd single – Arnold Layne – and, apparently, from the saying, ‘mighty oaks from little acorns grow’). The Arnold Corns were Bowie, a band called Rungk and the fashion designer Freddie Burretti. Burretti – who Bowie and Angie met as regulars at the gay nightclub the Sombrero – was to front the band and was renamed Rudi Valentino. Each of the other band members was given new names too! But Valentio wasnt a singer, so he was to mime to Bowie’s vocals. Moonage Daydream was released on B&G records under a dodgy one-off deal (which would – as we’ll see – eventually come back to nip at Bowie’s heels). The cut – which kicks off with some words from the producer – is not the electric monolith known from Ziggy Stardust – but it certainly has its own glam charms! Driven by piano (which was Bowie’s compositional tool du jour) and acoustic guitar, the verses and choruses are spaced-out grooves, and the breaks introduce a merry-go-round joyousness with shouts and cheers such as ‘Come on you mothers!’, and ‘Wooooh!’ Brilliant.
‘Moonage Daydream’:
The A Side to the Moonage Daydream
Single. Written by David Bowie. Single released 7 May 1971.
Available on Five Years (1969–1973) boxset on Re:Call 1
“Recalling the Los Angeles shoot with Bowie in the mid-Nineties, Uchitel says, ‘I just remember him saying, ‘What if I put red lipstick on?’ At that moment many people were taking pictures of David Bowie, but not like that.’ ”
In the Doctor Who serial The War Machine (Season 3, 1966), the (as yet undesignated First) Doctor and companions (to be) Polly and Ben Jackson come up against super-computer WOTAN (Will Operating Thought ANalogue). WOTAN is housed in the newly built, then space-age, Post Office (now BT) Tower. It will interlink with other computers around the world, and can even network with human brains. WOTAN soon realizes that humans are old tech, and so aims to take over the Earth and enslave humankind. The story not only pre-sages the internet, but also 2001 and the Terminator films. Doctor Who was beyond popular in the 1960s and 1970s, and Bowieologist Nicholas Pegg tells us Bowie and the band – who were holed up in Haddon Hall composing, rehearsing and partying – would catch the show on Saturday evenings. No doubt with a spliff – Bowie was caning the stuff at the time. The Third Doctor was on-screen, and Pegg calls out serials such as The Silurians and Inferno (both Season 7, 1970), but I think it is more likely Bowie tripped back to The War Machine – and so we get the lyrics to the Saviour Machine. The cut has a killer riff – but more than any other track on The Man Who Sold the World, the sonic landscape belongs to Mace’s moog which gives a prog-rock, space-age feel to the piece. Bowie sings of a computer called The Prayer which solves the world’s problems before teatime, and then goes on to fuck with us. It aint happened yet, but futurologists still see this as a risk on par with environmental catastrophe and being hit by an asteroid.
‘Saviour Machine’:
Track 6 of The Man Who Sold The World album. Written by David Bowie. Released 4 November 1970 (USA); April 1971 (UK). Available on
The Man Who Sold The World
(1970).
