David Bowie - Station To Station

1: Station To Station
2: Golden Years
3: Word On A Wing
4: TVC 15
5: Stay
6: Wild Is The Wind


This is not my favourite David Bowie album, but it's certainly in my top five and it's one of his most underrated efforts as well in my opinion. Beside that, even though the album is only 6 tracks, individually, each one of them make up for it in length. The epic kick off 'Station To Station' really gets things going once it starts, the drug fuelled lyrics sums the song and times that Bowie was going through, evidently weighing less than 9 stone (thin as me pretty much) and a diet of eggs, milk and cocaine gives us a slight insight into what this mad artist was going through.

Bowie's tenth album here is drug ridden, the change in rhythm is almost constant and is fairly nervous. This theme is pointed out in 'Golden Years', which is a sort of hint on how Bowie's own 'Golden Years' were during the 1970's... untouchable. The funky, choppy guitar intro provides an upbeat start to the song, where in the opener, listeners are made to wait a good four or five minutes before the song gets going. Probably the most splendid element of 'Golden Years' is Bowie's vocals, just like in his previous album 'Young Americans' where they were full of soul... even if it was plastic. After 'Golden Years' listeners are plunged into 'Word On A Wing' which is a heartfelt song on what The Thin White Duke was experiencing. This song is the Duke's cry for help, for a return back to Europe and to stabilise himself, while meddling with ideas of fascism and heavy substance abuse. Again, Bowie's vocals are the formidable force through-out this song, they're completely in touch with how we was feeling, the lyrics however in 'Word On A Wing' are obvious to interpret, unlike most of the lyrics in 'Station To Station' which are simply sombre and heavily drug influenced and hard to get any meaning out of them.

The rest of the album is mainly a follow on from what I already described about the first three tracks. Although, 'TVC 15' is probably the most accessible track on the album apart from 'Golden Years', with it's catchy chorus and jaunting piano backdrop creating a typical catchy Bowie track in all it's glory. 'Stay' is probably the most experimental song of the album and I'll even dare to say the most 'rockiest' song of the album, coming in at seven minutes long, it's robot like guitar solo's, in terms of floating in and out fluency but remaining prominent through-out. The final song in the album however, 'Wild Is The Wind' didn't become a 'hit' until 1981, however, the song is another heartfelt ballad, which isn't written by him, but he gives Tiomkin and Washington's original version a bit more emotion and prominence.