Changes (David Bowie song)

"Changes"
Single by David Bowie
from the album Hunky Dory
B-side	"Andy Warhol"
Released	7 January 1972
Format	7" single
Recorded	Trident Studios, London April 1971
Genre	Glam rock
Length	3:33
Label	RCA Records 2160
Writer(s)	David Bowie
Producer	Ken Scott, David Bowie
David Bowie singles chronology
"Hang On to Yourself" (1971) "Changes" (1972) "Starman" (1972)
Hunky Dory track listing "Changes" (1) "Oh! You Pretty Things" (2) Alternative cover

"Changes" is a song by David Bowie, originally released on the album Hunky Dory in December 1971 and as a single in January 1972. Despite missing the Top 40, "Changes" became one of Bowie's best-known songs. The lyrics are often seen as a manifesto for his chameleonic personality, sexual ambiguity, and frequent reinventions of his musical style throughout the 1970s.^[1] This single is cited as David Bowie's official North American debut, despite the fact that the song "The Man Who Sold the World" was released in North America two years prior.^[2]

Music and lyrics

Bowie has said that the track "started out as a parody of a nightclub song, a kind of throwaway".^[3][4] The musical arrangement featured the composer's saxophone, Rick Wakeman's keyboards and Mick Ronson's strings, while the stuttering chorus has been compared to The Who.^[5][6]

The lyrics focused on the compulsive nature of artistic reinvention ("Strange fascination, fascinating me / Changes are taking the pace I'm going through") and distancing oneself from the rock mainstream ("Look out, you rock 'n' rollers").^[1] The song has also been interpreted as touting "Modern Kids as a New Race",^[5] a theme echoed on the following album track, "Oh! You Pretty Things". Rolling Stone's contemporary review of Hunky Dory considered that "Changes" could be "construed as a young man's attempt to reckon how he'll react when it's his time to be on the maligned side of the generation schism".^[7]

Release and aftermath

The composer having agreed to Peter Noone covering "Oh! You Pretty Things", which later commentators have argued was the obvious single from Hunky Dory,^[5] "Changes" was chosen for a 45 release in January 1972. Like the album, it generated good reviews but negligible chart action, peaking just outside the US Top 40 and failing in Britain.^[5]

The song was a regular feature of Bowie's live performances as Ziggy Stardust in 1972–73, appearing again on the Diamond Dogs tour in 1974 and the Station to Station tour in 1976. According to Bowie, "it turned into this monster that nobody would stop asking for at concerts: 'Dye-vid, Dye-vid – do Changes!' I had no idea it would become such a popular thing."^[4] The song is ranked at number 127 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2004 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Track listing

1. "Changes" (Bowie) – 3:33
2. "Andy Warhol" (Bowie) – 3:58

Production credits

• Producer:
  • Ken Scott
  • David Bowie

• Musicians:
  • David Bowie: vocals, guitar, Mellotron, saxophone
  • Mick Ronson: guitar, string arrangement
  • Trevor Bolder: bass
  • Mick Woodmansey: drums
  • Rick Wakeman: piano

Charts

Chart (1972)	Peak position
US Billboard Hot 100	66
Chart (1975)	Peak position
US Billboard Hot 100	41

Live versions

• Bowie played the song for the BBC's Johnny Walker Lunchtime Show on 22 May 1972. This was broadcast in early June 1972 and eventually released on Bowie at the Beeb in 2000.
• A version recorded at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on 20 October 1972 was released on Santa Monica '72. This version also appeared on the Japanese release of RarestOneBowie.
• A previously unreleased live version from Boston Music Hall on 1 October 1972 was released on the Sound and Vision box set. This version was also released on the bonus disc of the Aladdin Sane - 30th Anniversary Edition in 2003.
• A live version recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon, London, on 3 July 1973 was released on Ziggy Stardust - The Motion Picture in 1983.
• A live version from Bowie's 1974 tour was released on David Live; it was notable for Bowie singing the words "children that you shit on" as opposed to "spit on". This version was also released on the album Rock Concert (Netherlands 1979) and as a B-side of the Spanish version of the single "Knock on Wood". Another live recording from the 1974 tour was released on A Portrait in Flesh (Australia 1996).

Other releases

Bowie hit compilations rarely omit "Changes" despite its lack of chart success – indeed, the retrospectives Changesonebowie (1976), Changestwobowie (1981) and Changesbowie (1990) have taken their titles from the song.

• It has appeared on the following compilations:
  • The Best of David Bowie (Japan 1974)
  • Changesonebowie (1976)
  • Fame and Fashion (1984)
  • Sound and Vision (1989)
  • Changesbowie (1990)
  • The Singles Collection (1993)
  • The Best of 1969/1974 (1997)
  • Best of Bowie (UK, US, Australia 2002)
• It was released as the B-side of the UK rerelease of "Space Oddity" in 1975.
• It appeared on two picture disc sets, Fashion and the RCA Life Time Disc Set.

Cover versions

• Los Chicros - on the Bowie tribute compilation BowieMania: Mania, une collection obsessionelle de Beatrice Ardisson (2007)
• Butterfly Boucher - recorded in 2004 for the Shrek 2 soundtrack, featuring Bowie on alternating vocals.
• Seu Jorge - a Portuguese version for the film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in 2004.
• Lindsay Lohan has covered the song for the 2004 film Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.
• Shawn Mullins - released on the albums The Faculty Soundtrack and The First Ten Years, and on single, in 1998.
• Joe K's Kid on the tribute album Spiders from Venus: Indie Women Artists and Female-Fronted Bands Cover David Bowie in 2003.
• The Greater Good on Hero: The Main Man Records Tribute to David Bowie (2007).
• Piano rock band Jack's Mannequin has performed the song live, which can be found at www.jacksmannequin.org.
• Bananarama recorded this song in 1993 with producers Mike Stock and Pete Waterman but never released it.

Appearances in popular culture

• Lines from the song's second verse were used in the opening of the 1985 film The Breakfast Club:

And these children that you spit on

As they try to change their worlds

Are immune to your consultations

They're quite aware of what they're going through...

• The phrase "Strange fascination" was used as the title of David Buckley's Bowie biography, first published in 1999.
• In the Simpsons episode "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge" in 2000, Homer sings his own lyrics to the song while working underneath his car: "Ch-ch-ch-changes! Time to change the oil! Changes! Don't want to be an oily man..."
• In the Flight of the Conchords episode "Bowie", the duo did a video of a song called "Bowie's in Space" in which a lyric went "Hey Bowie - Do you have one really funky sequined spacesuit? Or do you have several Ch-changes?"
• "Ch-Ch-Changes" is the name of two television episodes dealing with sex change operations, one in Popular, the other in CSI. It is also the name of an episode of the Canadian show Instant Star, which named each episode after a hit song.
• It appeared in Shrek 2, sung by Bowie and Butterfly Boucher.
• It was featured in the last episode of the British TV programme Life on Mars, named after another Bowie song.
• Lindsay Lohan sang it in the film Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen.
• On social networking site Bebo, the section for updates on users' friends' profiles on the homepage is under the heading 'Ch-Ch-Changes'
• In the TV series Dexter, the song appears in episode 5 of season 3 while Dexter kills a murderer.
• Angus serenades Kit with the song on The L-Word.
• In the second verse of the song "Kiss Me Again (Stuttering)" by the band Ben's Brother, the 'Ch-Ch-Changes' hook is used as a tribute to Bowie:

I know- I know- it's so-

It's so-so-so symbolic of everything-

Of everything that's wrong with me and you

So tell me what I'm s'posed to do

Oh, it's been ages since we've been really honest

But I can make ch-ch-ch-ch-changes if you really want this

• The American television show Heroes had an episode called "Turn and Face the Strange", a line from the chorus
• Bowie's version was used in a TV commercial for BMW that aired on Fox Broadcasting's coverage of Super Bowl XLV on February 6, 2011.^[8]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Buckley, David (1999). Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story. p. 116. 
2. ^ "Watch that Man" by Tina Clarke, Music Express magazine, March 1990, page 9
3. ^ Raggett, Ned. "Review of Changes". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/song/t3054920. 
4. ^ ^{a b} Loder, Kurt Loder; Bowie, David (1989). Sound and Vision: CD liner notes
5. ^ ^{a b c d} Carr, Roy; Murray, Charles Shaar (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record. pp. 40–44. 
6. ^ Blake, Mark (ed.) (2007). "Future Legend", MOJO 60 Years of Bowie: pp.74-75
7. ^ Mendelsohn, John (January 6, 1972). "Hunky Dory". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/davidbowie/albums/album/237402/review/6067648/hunky_dory. ^{[dead link]}
8. ^ "David Bowie News February 2011". Bowiewonderworld.com. 2011-02-06. http://www.bowiewonderworld.com/bowienews/news0211.htm. Retrieved 2011-10-30. 

References

• Pegg, Nicholas, The Complete David Bowie, Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, 2000, ISBN 1-903111-14-5