Song by Song

'Station To Station' is regarded by many fans as his finest album. Every song on it is a favourite and all have been regular features in his live set - right up to his last tour in 2004 when he included the title track again. For the 1983 'Serious Moonlight' tour five of the six songs were in the original set so it seems certain that they are some of Bowie's favourites as well; 1999 had 'Word On A Wing' and 'Wild Is The Wind'. The title track which has been a mainstay of his live set - being featured as an opening number (1976), a closing number (1978) and a visual centrepiece (1983). 'Stay' is another song that has stood up well as a popular encore and forming a showpiece for his current guitarist - most notably Adrian Belew in 1978 and 1990. 'Golden Years' was a top ten single in both Britain and America and has been released twice as a single in Britain as well as appearing on numerous compilation albums.

The "Station To Station' title track is effectively three songs joined together - the first is a speeded-up tape of the sound of a train moving at great speed and phased so as to sound as if it is moving great distances in a short time. Due to his dislike of flying Bowie had spent a lot of time travelling great distances of the States by train. The second part effectively begins when Earl Slick's guitar fades in over the train and the rythmn builds to a peak and Bowie sings the first line 'The return of the thin white duke... throwing darts in lovers' eyes'. During his stay in Los Angeles and the time spent making 'The Man Who Fell To Earth', Bowie had gone through periods of extreme depression enlivened by his use of cocaine and dabbling in mythology and obscure religions. Several of these themes can be found on the LP - the Thin White Duke is a man who has been through a period of happiness - 'once I could never be down' - but is now waiting for a release and is not certain where it will come from - 'got to keep searching and searching but oh what will I be believing and who will connect me with love ?". The same theme crops up again in 'Stay' when 'you can never really tell when somebody wants something you want too' but 'this week dragged past me so slowly, the days fell on their knees, maybe I'll take something to help me'.

"He knew he liked the direction of Kraftwerk," said Carlos Alomar "… allowing me to do an introduction thats four minutes long". Bowie had been a big fan of Kraftwerk and the other Germans artists like CAN and Neu! and the following year would try to work with some of them when he was in France making the 'Low' album. Kraftwerk's 'Radioactivity' album was used as the intro music for the 1976 tour.

The single 'Golden Years' is the second track providing some light relief after the title track and introducing a spirit of optimism which is echoed in 'Word On A Wing'. 'I'll stick with you baby for a thousand years, nothings going to touch you in these golden years'. The feel of the song is a throwback to the previous album 'Young Americans' but with a much harder edge. Allegedly Bowie wrote the song for Elvis Presley who was his labelmate on RCA at the time.

'Word On A Wing' is a "song about my new optimism that has lacked since 'Hunky Dory'. I'm back in the scheme of things." It has a very religious feel with a choral effect on the backing vocals and a church-like organ sound. the idea seems to be that Bowie is holding a conversation with God and tells him that he is trying hard to fit among his 'scheme of things' although there are aspects of religious belief that he is not impressed with - 'I don't stand in my own light' but 'as long as I can I'll walk beside you, I'm alive in you'. This is one of the oddest songs he has recorded but is the first indication of some of the ideas that were to surface on the 'Lodger' and 'Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)' albums years later. Of this song, Bowie has said "I wrote the thing as a hymn. What better way can a man give thanks for something that he has dreamed of achieving, than doing it in a hymn ? I wrote it when I felt very much at peace with the world."

'TVC15' is one of his favoutrite songs and is explained thus : "That one is about a television set. This chap buys a television set with a holgrammic picture. It throws out a sort of three-dimensional picture on the carpet. The bloke brings over his girlfriend and the television eats her, or rather the girl just jumps into the picture. The song is a eulogy to the television set, asking it to throw her back out again."

'Stay' is one of his finest songs and in common with other most popular Bowie songs finds him at his most personal and realistic, such as 'Fame', 'China Girl', 'Sound And Vision' and 'Ashes To Ashes'. Bowie is often at his best when writing personally as on 'Hunky Dory', 'Low' and 'Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)' .The lyrics of 'Stay' - 'This time I know we could get it together, if I did casually mention tonight, that would be crazy tonight... stay this time, I really want you so badly this time' refer to some personal crisis that he was undergoing at the time. Indeed the song is still a personal favourite of his. One of the themes of the song is loneliness - echoing themes from 'Space Oddity', 'Fame' and 'Ashes To Ashes'.

The last song is 'Wild Is The Wind', written by Dimitri Tiomkin (who also provided music for several of the James Dean films) and the theme song for a film of the same name starring Anthony Quinn and sung by Johnny Mathis. Bowie said : "I've always loved that one. Its the only one on the album done live. It sounded so good that we left it like that." It was also released as a single in late 1981 as part of the promotion for the 'ChangesTwoBowie' album with a black and white mimed video shot in a studio with session musicians and Tony Visconti playing the bass guitar.