A distressed primal howl for the alpine air and culture of Europe were the main motivations for David Bowie’s next album 1976’s Station to Station. It may have been recorded in LA, but the intention was to reach out across the Atlantic: an escapist gesture of hope to crack the drug habit.
Imbued with, or just unashamedly sucking up, the innovative vapours of the Teutonic music scene, those previous soul allusions were now entwined with the pan-European express of Cluster/Harmonia (and all the various Roedelius and Dieter Moebius projects), Kraftwerk and Neu!
The autobahn was already spoken for, so it would be the allure of continental train journeys that oiled the wheels of the album’s minor opus title track. Heralding the “return of the thin white duke”, Station To Station traversed disco funk (‘Stay’), doo-wop futurism (‘TVC15’) and featured Bowie the Shakespearian glib, warbled crooner (‘Word On A Wing’, ‘Wild Is The Wind’). Oh yes the note register was high all right; a resounding plaintive cry before that all-immersive dip into the Berlin years.
Decreed as the leading highlights of the album by the majority –
Station To Station, TVC 15 (single), Golden Years (single)
Pay attention to these often overlooked beauties –
Stay, Wild is the Wind
