Time (David Bowie song)
Encyclopedia
"Time" is a song by David Bowie
. Written in New Orleans in November 1972 during the American leg of his first Ziggy Stardust
tour, it was released as the opening track on Side Two of the album Aladdin Sane
in April 1973. An edited version of the song supplanted the release of the single "Drive-In Saturday
" in the United States
and Japan
.
," and compared to the cabaret
music of Jacques Brel
and Bertolt Brecht
/Kurt Weill
. Keyboardist Mike Garson
said that he employed "the old stride piano
style from the 20s and I mixed it up with avant-garde jazz
styles plus it had the element of show music, plus it was very European." Co-producer Ken Scott
took credit for the idea of mixing the sound of Bowie's breathing right up front when the music paused, just before guitarist Mick Ronson
launched into his cacophonous solo.
The song's best-known couplet
is "Time - he flexes like a whore / Falls wanking to the floor"; RCA
allowed it to remain in the US single edit, being unfamiliar with the meaning of the British term "wanking
". However when Bowie came to perform the song on the US television special The 1980 Floor Show in August 1973, he slurred the line in such a way as to render it "Falls swanking to the floor." Conversely, RCA cut the line "In quaaludes
and red wine" from the single, while Bowie retained it for The 1980 Floor Show. The phrase "Billy Dolls" refers to Billy Murcia
, late drummer for the New York Dolls
.
critics Roy Carr
and Charles Shaar Murray
have described the words as sounding "strained and incomplete", concluding that "with such a weak lyric, the overly melodramatic music sounds faintly absurd".
The Japanese release featured "Panic in Detroit
" on the B-side.
This song is referenced in Series 01, Episode 04 of the BBC television program "A Bit of Fry and Laurie
" in the sketch following the show's introductory sketch.
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
. Written in New Orleans in November 1972 during the American leg of his first Ziggy Stardust
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a 1972 concept album by English musician David Bowie, which is loosely based on a story of a rock star named Ziggy Stardust. It peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number 75 in the United States on the Billboard Music...
tour, it was released as the opening track on Side Two of the album Aladdin Sane
Aladdin Sane
Aladdin Sane is the sixth album by David Bowie, released by RCA Records in 1973 . The follow-up to his breakthrough The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, it was the first album Bowie wrote and released as a bona fide rock star...
in April 1973. An edited version of the song supplanted the release of the single "Drive-In Saturday
Drive-In Saturday
"Drive-In Saturday" is a song by David Bowie from his 1973 album Aladdin Sane. It was released as a single a week before the album and, like its predecessor "The Jean Genie", became a Top 3 UK hit.-Music and lyrics:...
" in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
Production and style
The piece has been described as "burlesque vampBurlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
," and compared to the cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
music of Jacques Brel
Jacques Brel
Jacques Brel was a Belgian singer-songwriter who composed and performed literate, thoughtful, and theatrical songs that generated a large, devoted following in France initially, and later throughout the world. He was widely considered a master of the modern chanson...
and Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
/Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
. Keyboardist Mike Garson
Mike Garson
Mike Garson is an American pianist, most notable for his work with David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Billy Corgan, Free Flight, and The Smashing Pumpkins.- Early career :...
said that he employed "the old stride piano
Stride piano
Harlem Stride Piano, Stride Piano, or just Stride, is a jazz piano style that was developed in the large cities of the East Coast, mainly in the New York, during 1920s and 1930s. The left hand may play a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, seventh or tenth interval on the first and...
style from the 20s and I mixed it up with avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which ...
styles plus it had the element of show music, plus it was very European." Co-producer Ken Scott
Ken Scott
Ken Scott is an English record producer and recording engineer.-Career:Scott started at the age of 16 working in the tape library at Abbey Road Studios. He became a recording engineer working with such acts as The Beatles, Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Procol Harum...
took credit for the idea of mixing the sound of Bowie's breathing right up front when the music paused, just before guitarist Mick Ronson
Mick Ronson
Michael "Mick" Ronson was an English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer. He is best known for his work with David Bowie, as one of The Spiders from Mars...
launched into his cacophonous solo.
The song's best-known couplet
Couplet
A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...
is "Time - he flexes like a whore / Falls wanking to the floor"; RCA
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
allowed it to remain in the US single edit, being unfamiliar with the meaning of the British term "wanking
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
". However when Bowie came to perform the song on the US television special The 1980 Floor Show in August 1973, he slurred the line in such a way as to render it "Falls swanking to the floor." Conversely, RCA cut the line "In quaaludes
Methaqualone
Methaqualone is a sedative-hypnotic drug that is similar in effect to barbiturates, a general central nervous system depressant. The sedative-hypnotic activity was first noted by Indian researchers in the 1950s and in 1962 methaqualone itself was patented in the US by Wallace and Tiernan...
and red wine" from the single, while Bowie retained it for The 1980 Floor Show. The phrase "Billy Dolls" refers to Billy Murcia
Billy Murcia
Billy Murcia, born in Bogotá, Colombia and raised in Jackson Heights, New York, was the original drummer for the New York Dolls.Billy Murcia and Sylvain Sylvain both attended Quintano's School for Young Professionals, in the late sixties. It was at Quintano's that they met Johnny Thunders, also a...
, late drummer for the New York Dolls
New York Dolls
The New York Dolls is an American rock band, formed in New York in 1971. The band's protopunk sound prefigured much of what was to come in the punk rock era; their visual style influenced the look of many new wave and 1980s-era glam metal groups, and they began the local New York scene that later...
.
Reception
Like its parent album, "Time" has divided critical opinion. Biographer David Buckley calls the full-length version "five minutes of wired perfection" and the lyrics "poetic and succinct", while NMENME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
critics Roy Carr
Roy Carr
Roy Carr is an English music journalist. He joined the New Musical Express in the late 1960s and has edited NME, VOX and Melody Maker magazines...
and Charles Shaar Murray
Charles Shaar Murray
Charles Shaar Murray is an English music journalist. His first experience in journalism came 1970 when he was asked to contribute to the satirical magazine Oz...
have described the words as sounding "strained and incomplete", concluding that "with such a weak lyric, the overly melodramatic music sounds faintly absurd".
Track listing
- "Time" (Bowie) – 3:38
- "The Prettiest StarThe Prettiest Star"The Prettiest Star" is a song by David Bowie, originally released as a single in 1970.Bowie had recently re-recorded an old Deram track, "London Bye Ta Ta", intended as a follow-up single to "Space Oddity" in early 1970. However, the same sessions had also spawned a new composition named "The...
" (Bowie) – 3:27
The Japanese release featured "Panic in Detroit
Panic in Detroit
"Panic in Detroit" is a song written by David Bowie for the album Aladdin Sane in 1973. Bowie based it on friend Iggy Pop's descriptions of revolutionaries he had known as a youth in Michigan. It is also interpreted as being written about the 1967 Detroit riots...
" on the B-side.
Production credits
- ProducersRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
:- Ken ScottKen ScottKen Scott is an English record producer and recording engineer.-Career:Scott started at the age of 16 working in the tape library at Abbey Road Studios. He became a recording engineer working with such acts as The Beatles, Jeff Beck, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Procol Harum...
- David BowieDavid BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
- Ken Scott
- MusicianMusicianA musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
s:- David BowieDavid BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
: vocals, guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with... - Mick RonsonMick RonsonMichael "Mick" Ronson was an English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer. He is best known for his work with David Bowie, as one of The Spiders from Mars...
: guitar - Trevor BolderTrevor BolderTrevor Bolder is an English rock bassist, musician, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his long association with Uriah Heep and his tenure with The Spiders From Mars, the one-time backing band for David Bowie, although he has played alongside a variety of musicians since the...
: bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... - Mick WoodmanseyMick WoodmanseyMick 'Woody' Woodmansey is an English rock drummer from Driffield, Yorkshire, best known for his work with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars...
: drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person .... - Ken Fordham: saxophoneSaxophoneThe saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
- Mike GarsonMike GarsonMike Garson is an American pianist, most notable for his work with David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Billy Corgan, Free Flight, and The Smashing Pumpkins.- Early career :...
: pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
- David Bowie
Live versions
- It was recorded at the farewell concert at the Hammersmith OdeonHammersmith ApolloHammersmith Apollo is a major entertainment venue located in Hammersmith, London. Designed by Robert Cromie in Art Deco style, it opened in 1932 as the Gaumont Palace cinema, being re-named the Hammersmith Odeon in 1962...
, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, on , later released on Ziggy Stardust - The Motion PictureZiggy Stardust - The Motion PictureZiggy Stardust: The Motion Picture is a live album by David Bowie, corresponding to the film of the same name. The music was recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on , although the album was not issued by RCA Records until 1983...
. - The live version recorded for The 1980 Floor Show on was released on the semi-legal album RarestOneBowieRarestOneBowieRarestOneBowie is a David Bowie compilation. This semi-legal release was one in the series of mid-nineties releases by MainMan, Bowie's former management company during the seventies...
in 1994. - A live version from the 1974 Diamond DogsDiamond DogsDiamond Dogs is a concept album by David Bowie, originally released by RCA Records in 1974. Thematically it was a marriage of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Bowie's own glam-tinged vision of a post-apocalyptic world...
tour was released as a bonus track on the RykodiscRykodiscRykodisc Records is an American record label. It is owned by Warner Music Group, operates as a unit of WMG's Independent Label Group and is distributed through Alternative Distribution Alliance.-Company history:...
release of David LiveDavid LiveDavid Live is David Bowie’s first official live album, originally released by RCA Records in 1974. Recorded on the initial leg of Bowie’s US tour supporting Diamond Dogs in July of that year , it has been cited as one of the best live...
in 1990. The 2004 reissue of David Live inserted "Time" into its correct position in the concert track listing. - Another live recording from the 1974 tour was released on the semi-legal album A Portrait in Flesh.
- A live version from the Glass SpiderGlass SpiderGlass Spider is a video album by David Bowie, recorded during the 1987 Glass Spider Tour at Sydney Entertainment Centre.-Release details:...
tour recorded at the Montreal Olympic Stadium on 30 August 1987 was released as track 11 on the second disk of the limited edition 3-disc set released in 2007.
Other releases
- It appeared on the Japanese compilation The Best of David Bowie.
- The single edit of the song was released on the bonus disc of the Aladdin SaneAladdin SaneAladdin Sane is the sixth album by David Bowie, released by RCA Records in 1973 . The follow-up to his breakthrough The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, it was the first album Bowie wrote and released as a bona fide rock star...
- 30th Anniversary Edition in 2003.
This song is referenced in Series 01, Episode 04 of the BBC television program "A Bit of Fry and Laurie
A Bit of Fry and Laurie
A Bit of Fry & Laurie is a British sketch comedy television series starring former Cambridge Footlights members Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, broadcast on both BBC1 and BBC2 between 1989 and 1995. It ran for four series and totalled 26 episodes, including a 35 minute pilot episode in 1987.As in The...
" in the sketch following the show's introductory sketch.
Cover versions
- Cinema Strange - Goth Oddity - A Tribute to David Bowie (1999)
- David JDavid JDavid John Haskins , better known as David J, is a British alternative rock musician. He was the bassist for the gothic rock band Bauhaus and Love and Rockets....
's Cabaret Obscura - .2 Contamination: A Tribute to David Bowie (2006) - Hazel O'ConnorHazel O'ConnorHazel O'Connor is an English singer-songwriter and actress. She is the daughter of a soldier from Galway who settled in England after World War II to work in a car plant...
- Single - Rozz WilliamsRozz WilliamsRozz Williams was an American vocalist and musician of several varieties, most famous for fronting the band Christian Death, then later Shadow Project with musician Eva O, though his main project throughout his career was the industrial, Premature Ejaculation...
- Live recording