Station To Station
I am pretty sure my favourite David Bowie album is Station To Station. I am pretty sure my favourite Bowie track is Station To Station off that same album.
When I am invited to appear on Desert Island Discs I will choose Station To Station as the one song I can take with me - it is flipping ten minutes long, and on a desert island I will want a song that takes a long time to understand and doesn’t repeat too often on my walkman.
Station To Station is great because it is at least two songs in one, if not three. The opening section has the discordant stop / start rhythm of a steam train getting up to speed and Bowie’s lyrics are intelligible while being sufficiently dense that I can’t sing along without a dictionary.
And then the song breaks into the second section with a solid disco rhythm interrupted by Bowie expressing the joy and uncertainty of a new love affair before we finally hit the chorus which takes the rest of the song to the end.
It’s not the side-effects of the cocaine, I’m thinking that it must be love.
Oh my gosh it is fantastic.
It is likely that if I can’t take Station To Station to my desert island I will take the prelude from Tristan Und Isolde, also about 10 minutes. Failing that maybe Something Against You by Pixies.