Subterraneans

Song infobox
Name = Subterraneans


Artist = David Bowie
Album = Low
Released = January 14 1977
track_no = 11
Recorded = 1976
Genre = Art Rock
Length = 5:39
Label = RCA
Writer = David Bowie
Producer = David Bowie and Tony Visconti
prev = Weeping Wall
prev_no = 10
next =
next_no =

"See subterranean for other Wikipedia pages with similar titles. For the rock band see Subterraneans (band)."

"Subterraneans" is a mostly instrumental song by David Bowie for his album "Low" (1977).

The final song of "Low", "Subterraneans" was meant to invoke the misery of those in East Berlin during the Cold War. According to Bowie, people who "got caught in East Berlin after the separation - hence the faint jazz saxophones representing the memory of what it was." [ [http://members.ol.com.au/rgriffin/GoldenYears/Low.html http://members.ol.com.au/rgriffin/GoldenYears/Low.html Griffin, R. "Low." Bowie Golden Years (Jan). 2005] retrieved 12 June 2007]

Together with "Ian Fish, U.K. Heir" and "The Mysteries" from "The Buddha of Suburbia", this song is among Bowie's most subdued and ambient. "Subterraneans" was ultimately the most heavily edited song on "Low", with the reversed instrument sounds, multilayered synthesizers from Brian Eno, saxophone from Bowie, and a heavy layering of Bowie's near-chanted vocal. The music contains a synthesiser motif identical to that of Edward Elgar's Nimrod, the 9th Enigma Variation.

The piece was rumoured to be originally intended for use in the soundtrack to the film "The Man Who Fell to Earth", in which Bowie played the lead role. Though this rumour was false, the reversed track used as the bassline in this piece was actually the only remaining intact part of the film soundtrack that Bowie used on the "Low" album.

Lyrics

The lyrics are amongst Bowie's most inaccessible, and, superficially at least, seem to make no sense. "Subterraneans" is mostly instrumental, with brief, obscure lyrics sung near the song's end. Bowie reports [ [http://www.teenagewildlife.com/Interact/fc/misc/JG/L.html#S Low "Low, The Alienation: A lyrical interpretation by Jonathan Greatorex (15-Apr-2000)] URL retrieved 12 June 2007 ] that during the recording of "Low" he was "intolerably bored" with conventional narrative rock and roll lyrics. They seem to resemble the "cut-up" technique William Burroughs used to write, which Bowie has used before and expressed admiration for.

According to the liner notes to the 1999 rerelease of "Low", the lyrics are:

:Share bride failing star:care-line care-line care-line care-line driving me Shirley, Shirley, Shirley, own.

However, it is debatedFact|date=June 2007 that the lyric "care-line" is in fact the woman's name "Caroline," or that "Shirley" is not a name, but the word "surely."

Live versions

* The song was used as an introduction to Bowie's set during the 1995 Outside tour. It was different from the album version in that its lyrics and musical themes were merged from the song "Scary Monsters" (which would follow "Subterraneans" on the setlists). This version was performed alongside their co-headliners, Nine Inch Nails.

Cover versions

* Philip Glass - "Low Symphony" (1992)
* Nine Inch Nails - Live recording (with David Bowie) (1995)

References

ources

*Greatorex, Johnathan. "Just a Mortal With Potential." Teenage Wildlife. Nov. 1996. 06 Mar. 2006 < [http://www.teenagewildlife.com/Interact/fc/misc/JG/index.html Teenage Wildlife] >.