“Heroes” is the only one of the albums tagged as “The Berlin Trilogy” to have been completely recorded in Berlin. In style and structure it is not so very different to “Low”, a full side of songs and most of Side 2 taken up with instrumentals. Visconti and Eno were again here in a production/direction capacity. The band was made up of Alomar, Davies and Murray. There exists a tale that Bowie invited Neu! guitarist Michael Röther to join the sessions. Bowie insists Röther declined (although he also says the invite was for “Low” while Röther says it was for “Heroes”) and Röther claims the invite was rescinded in a phone call by one of Bowie’s staff. Either way we were certainly denied an intriguing collaboration. 

There is much to admire about “Heroes” but for me it is all about the title song. Back in the early 90’s I was out on tour with Kingmaker when on one late, no doubt boozy night the question was posed “If you could have been anywhere to witness any recording session which one would you be at ?” we all had our go at answering but the only response I remember was that of sound engineer Bo, who stared at the ceiling and said “in the control room at Hansa in Berlin when Bowie was recording THAT vocal”. He didn’t say which song, but I instantly knew what he meant, “Heroes”.

Reams and reams have likely been written about how Robert Fripp turned up and laid down that guitar part in one take, how Bowie wrote the lyrics at the last moment after spying Visconti and backing singer Antonia Maas stealing a private moment together in the shadow of the wall, about how Visconti set up microphones at different distances from his singer and gated them so they only opened when Bowie sang loud enough and so also caught the ambience of the room…the recording process is legendary. What came together out of that session is one of the greatest pieces of recorded music in human history, the full 6+ minute album version is nothing short of astonishing. 

I’m going to leave this write up there, I need to go listen to what I’ve just been eulogising, you should too…here you go…

“Heroes” - https://youtu.be/O1PDiYYjWo8

Bowie dragged The Thin White Duke out on the Isolar tour from February to May 1976 in support of “Station To Station”. Stacy Hayden replaced Earl Slick on guitar otherwise it was the same band as on the album. The tour was stark, Bowie dressed in black and white with only white light on stage. Iggy Pop was along on the tour too and the pairs drug use was getting serious. They were arrested in Rochester NY for possession. Bowie’s arrival in London resulted in the infamous “Nazi salute” photograph, Bowie claims he was caught mid-wave. (The tour is documented on the live CD “Live Nassau Coliseum '76” which was released as a bonus disc with “Station To Station” in 2010).

The tour concluded in Paris. After being driven out of the city by fans and then bouncing around the Château d’Hérouville (where he had recorded PinUps), recording Iggy Pop’s “The Idiot”, swinging through Munich and needing somewhere to escape the drug culture back in Los Angeles, Bowie and Iggy ended up in Berlin…the Heroin capital of Europe !

In September 1976 Bowie and band (Alomar, Murray, Davies, guitarist Ricky Gardiner and pianist Roy Young) along with Visconti and Brian Eno returned to the Château d’Hérouville where the majority of what was to become “Low” was recorded. Yes, you read that right, most of the album that is often described as the first in The Berlin Trilogy was recorded in France. 

Bowie was at this time involved in litigation with a former manager, his marriage to Angie was breaking up and she visited the studio with her new beau resulting in a huge row (out of which we at least got “Breaking Glass” and “Be My Wife”) he wasn’t in a good place. Visconti was also dissatisfied with the Château’s studio engineer. So everyone shipped back to Berlin where the album was finished at Hansa TonStudios.

Brian Eno’s contribution to “Low” cannot be denied or underestimated. Bowie had for sometime been a big fan of Krautrock artists like Kraftwerk and Neu!, and that can be heard, but Eno was an equally big influence. Bowie only sings on 5 of 11 songs on “Low” (although Visconti has said that both “Speed Of Life” and “A New Career In A New Town” were originally intended to have vocals but Bowie decided to leave them as instrumentals, bookends for Side 1) which led to much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth at RCA Records where some executives suggested he should return to Philadelphia and make “Young Americans II” !

On its release “Low” was advertised with the slogan “There’s New Wave, there’s Old Wave and there’s David Bowie” which at least shows someone at RCA understood him. The “songs” (as opposed to the instrumentals) are among his best. I’d put them up against anything he’d done before, especially “What In the World” and the single “Sound And Vision”. The instrumental tracks were a jarring shift in style for many, not jarring as in the music was jarring, it’s not, the instrumentals on side 2 are all very gentle and soothing in actual fact, “Warszawa” possibly being my favourite of the four. But hey, if you’d been paying attention over the last 6 years you could almost have expected the shift, right ? 

What In The World - https://youtu.be/HP8btAVedPg

This is one of those other days. Six songs, 5 originals and a cover (this time he picked a good un) and another of my very favourite Bowie records.

Bowie spent the first half of 1975 agreeing to star in and filming Nic Roeg’s movie “The Man Who Fell To Earth”. He plays an alien who has come to Earth in order to bring its natural resources back to his dying home planet. He styles himself as Thomas Jerome Newton and, using alien technological knowledge, forms a company, makes a great fortune but succumbs to depression and a crippling drug addiction. Much as the character of Ziggy Stardust had taken over Bowie so did Thomas Jerome Newton, with him pretty much becoming the lead character in person. After finishing the movie in August 1975 Bowie returned to Los Angeles where his Cocaine usage ramped up and his mental and physical health went downhill fast.

“I have an addictive personality. I’m quite clear on that now. And it was easily obtainable and it kept me working, ’cos I didn’t use it for… I wasn’t really a recreational guy, I wasn’t really an out-on-the-town guy…I loved being involved in that creative moment. And I’d found a soul-mate in this drug, which helped perpetuate that creative moment…“ David Bowie, Mojo, July 2002

Given all this it’s incredible that he managed to produce one of his best and most focussed albums. The sessions for “Station To Station” ran from September to November 1975. It was produced by Bowie and Harry Maslin with a band led by Carlos Alomar and featuring Earl Slick, a rhythm section of George Murray and Dennis Davies plus an appearance by the E Street Band’s Roy Bittan.

The title track introduces us to Bowie’s next character, “The return of the Thin White Duke, throwing darts in lovers eyes”. The Thin White Duke was equal parts Bowie’s coke fired neurotic self and Thomas Jerome Newton, all skin bone and black and white, singing us an epic song concerned with the stations of the cross and the Kabbalah and at the same time trying to convince us all “it’s not the side effects of the Cocaine”. When I first heard “Station To Station” I really didn’t get the title track, don’t know why it simply didn’t click with me. Then I heard the live version on “Stage” which is taken at a slightly quicker tempo and suddenly I got it. It’s become one of my most played individual Bowie songs.

I’ve referred before to a theory that each Bowie album features a song that’s a pointer to the next album. “Golden Years” could be that in reverse, it really would not have sounded out of place on “Young Americans”. A guitar riff coiled so slinkily it could be a snake ushers your feet to the dancefloor (it’s used brilliantly in a dance scene in the Medieval set film (!) “A Knights Tale”, check it out).

“Word On A Wing” is a hymn. Bowie had been searching before for something spiritual with his dalliance with Buddhism in the ‘60’s. The title track references the stations of the cross from Christianity and the Kabbalah, a school of thought within Judaism. Here he sings 

“Lord, I kneel and offer you my word on a wing, And I'm trying hard to fit among your scheme of things”

the need for something spiritual is still there but has to fit into a life as it is. Above all of that (for me) it’s an utterly beautiful song.

“TVC15” is the bizarre tale of a girl who’s eaten by her TV replete with bar room piano and some slightly silly backing vocals. And then we come to the 2nd great riff on this album. “Stay” is built around a powerhouse guitar figure conjured up by Earl Slick around which Bowie creates another dancefloor killer that stayed (see what I did there) in his live set right into the 21st century.

It all comes to a close with “Wild Is The Wind”, arguably Bowie’s best cover version. The song was written for the film of the same name in 1957 and first sung by Johnny Mathis. Bowie’s cover is virtually unrecognisable as the same song and is quite breathtaking.

“Station To Station” is a fabulous album, I just wish there was more of it. Six tracks almost qualifies it as a mini album. It remains, though, one of my favourites.

Wild Is The Wind - https://youtu.be/YsqlXkkEKxI