station to station ( the song )- 1st or 2nd half?

I don't particularly want to choose between the two halves, but... if pushed, I'd have to say the first half, just for that groove.

It's too late to be hateful.

There was actually an earlier far more detailed poll about this song, let me go and find it.

Best Bit of Station to Station

Yeah, I think I remember seeing that at some point. Might have been before my time on here, but I think it may have cropped up in a search at some point. I think there was a poll where every single part of the song was polled, down to the lyric?

xpost: Yup, that's the one!

1st half live version, 2nd half studio version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ5Gdcusq24

That poll was the micro.
This one's the macro!

Still impossible to choose

I went for the 1st half cause it is so peculiarly great.

this song has a tripartite structure imo. The second third begins with the chord change and "Once there were mountains and mountains..." and ends before "It's not the side effects of the cocaine."

First half. Shit draws you in, takes you on a journey.

Hate the close-miked flumpfy drum sound on this, though. It's the only thing keeping this from being a TOTALLY AMAZING song. As it stands, it's just an AMAZING song.

too late

Yeah but it's relatively short. Dort if a long bridge..
There's also the long helicopter intro or whatever which could be another "part" of sorts
xpost

I have to admit that when I saw this poll I thought 'hang on it's more like three parts'. But I just listened to the song again, and although it is three bits, the second is such a natural continuation of the first - particularly in a lyrical sense - that they're inseparable, they don't really make sense without each other. Where the third bit is more of a separate 'Bowie coked off his bonce' jam.

The whole record has this thin drum sound
xpost

Actually now people mention it, the drums are kind of annoying, especially as how the intro puts such an effort into setting the instruments in their own spaces. Then the drums come in and bleurgh the song loses a bit of focus.

Where was Eno when they need him..

Producing "Lucky Leif and the Longships" by Robert Calvert

I thought you were joking..but you were not.

I thought I was joking too

The whole record has this thin drum sound
xpost

― nostormo, Friday, December 12, 2014 7:03 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know, but this is my favorite song on the album, so it's that much more annoying.

Also, that sound actually kind of works on "Golden Years."

slightly disagree abt the drums: they sound fine for the most part, at least on the LP. But yeah, a bit clumpy on "S to S."

the best version IMO is the '78 Philly recording (likely doctored a bit afterward) on Stage

^^^ that's the version that really got me into the song, although I like the studio version more. The way the 'train' sounds on the live version whoosh by more is really something.

I mean, there's a proper sense of going somewhere, rather than 'BBC Sound Effects Vol. 3'.

you people are mad

I ike the live version he did with a reprise of the 'Thin White Duke' section at the very end.

I completely agree that the drum sound is perhaps a bit lighter than it should be, but it still doesn't prevent the track from being one of my all-time Bowie favourites. Station To Station, Low and Lodger are the ones I keep returning to the most.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted 2nd half on the proviso that the "Raise your glass high" bit is part of it, so silly but great.

First half. Shit draws you in, takes you on a journey.

OTM. Then the second half's such a release, first time I listened it felt like an unforseen explosion. "The european canon is here", I love that line (but anyway the song's full of juicy one-liners)

I picked the second half for poll's sake, but this is like picking between the frosting and the cream in a really good lemon pie.

First half is blighted by one of DB's floppiest lyrics: "Here are we / one magical movement / from Kether to Malkuth"

Second half has one of the greatest lyrics of all time: "It's not the side-effects of the cocaine / I'm thinking that it must be love / ... / the European canon is here"

Where's the "everything on this album pales in comparison to 'Stay' which is the best Bowie song ever"?

The VH1 Storytellers, when he's just about to start "Word on a wing" and goes "This is a difficult one", that's so sad... bowie's voice was totally gone back then, of course the version was depressing.

"Wild is the Wind" is the only bum note (literally) on this awesome album

I was listening to it the other day and thought exactly the same thing. The fact that Wild is the Wind is the weakest thing here speaks of how good this album is.

Word on a Wing's the most disturbing for me, because it's intended to provide hope and relief and ends up being desperate, weird and uncomfortable.

That's true. When I listen to it, I'll imagine I'm hearing the death throes of an animal.

I don't know why I find Bowie's leanings towards mysticism much more disturbing than anyone else's. For instance, in Jimmy Page's case, they seem somewhat appropiate with the rest of his projected persona. Whereas in Bowie, they feel like a step towards madness.

I think I've listened to "Wild Is The Wind" only twice and this still remains my second-favourite Bowie album

Feel a bit obligated to post here dn-wise... pt.1. The magik lyrics, the build-up. How it must have felt to experience this intro live in '76...

Everyone will already be aware of this, but can't recommend the 'Mainman and the Mainline' bootleg enough in this regard. Alomar et al absolutely killing it throughout the songs, especially on STS and Stay.

How amazing are those Panic in Detroit versions from the Isolar tour? Those Stacey Heydon-centered arrangements improve significantly an already very good track.

I love Wild is the Wind so much, in all its overwroughtness. "Yoooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuu kiss me" is I think my favorite Bowie line delivery of all time.

Interesting (to me anyway) that there's no keyboards on that track, all guitars.

I had multiple "aha" moments with W is the W: I had a dubbed cassette of Station to Station in my first car, which I listened to countless times without ever knowing that the song was a cover. A couple of years later I stumbled across the Johnny Mathis version, still at a stage in my life when Mathis was fatally unhip, and loved that; still more years went by before I heard Nina Simone.

These events dovetail with my obsession with Bryan Ferry's version of "These Foolish Things" and subsequent discovery of Billie Holiday.

I found out it was a cover, never heard any other version, still can't quite imagine it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

the first half of this song makes me so wistful for the days of my youth when I first heard it. remarkably good Bowie album imo