Time (David Bowie song)

"Time"
Single by David Bowie
from the album Aladdin Sane
B-side "The Prettiest Star"
Released 13 April 1973 (1973-04-13)[1] (United States)
Format 7" single
Recorded Trident Studios, London, England, January 1973
Genre
Length 3:38 (7" single edit)
5:14 (Full-length album version)
Label RCA
0007 (U.S.)
Writer(s) David Bowie
Producer(s)
David Bowie singles chronology
"Drive-In Saturday"
(1973)		 "Time"
(1973)		 "Let's Spend the Night Together"
(1973)
Aladdin Sane track listing
"Cracked Actor"
(5)		 "Time"
(6)		 "The Prettiest Star"
(7)

"Time" is a song by David Bowie. Written in New Orleans in November 1972 during the American leg of Bowie's first Ziggy Stardust tour, it was recorded in London in January 1973 and released as the opening track on side two of the album Aladdin Sane that April. An edited version of the song supplanted the release of the single "Drive-In Saturday" in the United States and Japan.[2]

Production and style

The piece has been described as "burlesque vamp,"[3] and compared to the cabaret music of Jacques Brel and Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill.[4] 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."[5] 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.[5]

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".[6] However, when Bowie came to perform the song on the U.S. 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."[7] 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.[4][8]

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",[5] while NME 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".[8]

Track listing

  1. "Time" (Bowie) – 3:38
  2. "The Prettiest Star" (Bowie) – 3:27

The Japanese release featured "Panic in Detroit" on the B-side.

Production credits

Live versions

Other releases

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.

Cover versions

Notes

  1. ↑ "Aladdin Sane (1973)". The Ziggy Stardust Companion. Retrieved 10 July 2008.
  2. ↑ "Aladdin Sane at The Ziggy Stardust Companion". www.5years.com. October 28, 2002.
  3. ↑ Kris Needs (1983). Bowie: A Celebration: p.29
  4. 1 2 Ben Gerson (19 July 1973). Rolling Stone review of Aladdin Sane
  5. 1 2 3 David Buckley (1999) Strange Fascination – David Bowie: The Definitive Story: pp. 185-187
  6. ↑ Nicholas Pegg (2000). The Complete David Bowie: p. 218
  7. ↑ "Time" at The Ziggy Stardust Companion
  8. 1 2 Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: pp.54-55

References

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

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