Станция к станции: Десятиминутный шедевр Дэвида Боуи

1976 song by David Bowie
the David Bowie song

"Station to Station" is a song by the English musician David Bowie. It was released in January 1976 as the title track and opener of his tenth studio album Station to Station, as well as on a promotional 7 inch single in France the same month. Co produced by Bowie and Harry Maslin, it was written and recorded in Los Angeles between September and November 1975. At over 10 minutes in length, it is Bowie's longest studio recording. Opening with a train like noise, the song's first half is a slow march, while the second takes the form of a prog disco suite in a different key and tempo than the first. It has been characterised as art rock and is influenced by the German electronic bands Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream. Lyrically, the song introduces Bowie's sinister persona the Thin White Duke, who became the mouthpiece for Station to Station and, throughout 1976, often the embodiment of Bowie himself. During the recording, Bowie was heavily dependent on drugs such as cocaine, which is referenced directly throughout. "Station to Station" also makes references to the Kabbalah, occultism, gnosticism, paranoia and other fixations that affected Bowie's mind at the time. The opening sound effect is a red herring meant to represent the Stations of the Cross, along with a juncture connecting two different stages of his career; it combined the funk and soul of his previous album Young Americans with the experimental sound he would explore on his Berlin Trilogy. "Station to Station" has received acclaim from music critics and biographers, who have praised the performances. Retrospectively, it has been named one of Bowie's greatest songs and, like its parent album, is seen as the indicator of where his career was heading at the time. He performed the track throughout the 1976 Isolar Tour, often in character as the Thin White Duke, and continued to perform it on different tours throughout his career. It was remastered, along with its parent album, as part of the box set Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976) in 2016.

"Station to Station" was recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles between September and November 1975. According to Emily Barker of NME, Bowie "starved his body of all nutrients (besides milk, red peppers, and cocaine)" during the song's recording. Bowie would recall later that he could not remember recording the album at all, saying "I have only flashes of making it." Author David Buckley states that Bowie's only memory of the sessions was "standing with [lead guitarist] Earl Slick in the studio and asking him to play a Chuck Berry riff in the same key throughout the opening of 'Station to Station'." At over 10 minutes in length, "Station to Station" is Bowie's longest studio recording. Structurally, the song builds from a droning, guitar driven introductory portion that mimics a train building up speed. Following the train noise, the band begins to enter, with percussion and keyboards playing chords in and out of key, after which the groove begins. The opening section consists of a A minor measure, followed by one over F and G, before returning to Author Peter Doggett describes the section as a "slow, hypnotic instrumental march". The march lasts for more than three minutes before Bowie begins his vocals. After several verses, at the five minute mark, a thud of drums signals a change of tempo and key and the band erupts into what Alan Light of Rolling Stone calls a "celebratory groove", which lasts for the rest of the track. Doggett likens the section to a progressive rock suite by the 1970s bands Genesis and Jethro Tull. Like the album, the entire song encompasses art rock. The train sound effect was created by Slick using flangers and delay effects. The noise pans from right to left across the stereo channels before fading out using feedback, which Doggett likens to "disappearing into a tunnel". According to Nicholas Pegg, the effect "acknowledges" the influence of the 1974 album Autobahn by the German electronic band Kraftwerk, which begins with a car starting up and driving across the stereo speakers. Pegg believes another influence is from Edgar Froese of the German electronic band Tangerine Dream, whom Bowie befriended during his "Berlin" years (1977–1979); Froese's 1975 album Epsilon in Malaysian Pale also begins with a train sound effect. However, he notes that the train is a red herring in that it expresses what Bowie later called "the album's 'wayward spiritual search'". More specifically, it reinstates the "travelling metaphor" of earlier compositions: "the stations recall the 'new surroundings' of "Rock 'n' Roll with Me" [from Diamond Dogs], and the "mountains on mountains" reprise the questing motifs of "Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud" [from David Bowie (1969)] and The Man Who Sold the World." Bowie would later state, "the 'Station to Station' track itself is very much concerned with the Stations of the Cross", It has been also described as "Kraut disco" by Rolling Stone. Another possible influence is guitarist Jimmy Page of the English rock band Led Zeppelin. Page was a session musician on Bowie's earliest recordings and had been an occasional acquaintance ever since. During the same time Bowie became dependent on cocaine, Page had become dependent on heroin, which Pegg considered "even more fearful" than Bowie's addiction. Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti was released in February 1975, months ahead of the Station to Station sessions. Pegg writes: "It's possible to discern in ["Station to Station"] a distinct flavour of the groove, tempo and sense of building tension created by the famous rising riff of Physical Graffiti's standout track 'Kashmir'", an epic track that evokes a "troubled spiritual journey" through its music and lyrics. Bowie himself also credited German Krautrock duo Neu! with some influence on the track, especially "the setting of the aggressive guitar drone against the almost but not quite robotic/machine drumming of Dinger".

"Station to Station" introduces Bowie's persona the Thin White Duke, a sinister figure who became the mouthpiece for Station to Station and, often throughout 1976, for Bowie himself. Bowie would later claim in 1997: "All the references within ["Station to Station"] have to do with the Kabbalah." Doggett believes the main themes of the track are magic, the arts of legendary musicians, both real and fictitious, the Kabbalah's mythical account of progress from Kether to Malkuth, love and cocaine. Doggett further argues: "just as [the Hunky Dory track] "Quicksand" offered a catalogue of avenues open to the inquisitive imagination of David Bowie circa 1971, so "Station to Station" present a more confused medley of the themes that were haunting his nightmares in the final weeks of 1975." The Duke introduces himself by saying "the return of the Thin White Duke/throwing darts in lovers' eyes." The song was also released as a promotional single, with the catalogue number 42549 A, in January 1976 in France by RCA Records, with a shortened duration of 3:40 and "TVC 15" as the B side. The full track was remastered, along with its parent album, and released on the same box set. Doggett writes that what saves the track from "utter obscurity" and his audience from "alienation" was the music itself. Alex Needham of The Guardian, in a review declaring Station to Station his favorite album, calls the track "monumental", adding that "Bowie blasts away his immediate Philly soul past and speeds into a more experimental future over 10 totally exhilarating minutes". In 2021, Rolling Stone ranked it number 400 in their updated list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Buckley describes "Station to Station" as heralding "a new era of experimentalism" for Bowie. Along with the rest of the album, the song presented the new direction Bowie was taking in his career, from the funk and soul of Young Americans to the experimental sound of his Berlin Trilogy. In 2001, Bowie said, "As far as the music goes, Low and its siblings were a direct follow on from the title track [of Station to Station]. It's often struck me that there will usually be one track on any given album of mine, which will be a fair indicator of the intent of the following album." Needham from The Guardian similarly writes that with the lyrics "the European cannon is here", Bowie fully announces what was to come. which was released as part of the 2010 Deluxe Edition of Station to Station, in the 2016 box set Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976), and as a standalone album in 2017. The Stage version was also featured in the Uli Edel film Christiane F. (1981), where Bowie, lip synching to his 1978 recording, made an appearance as himself performing the song at a concert. An edit of this version was released on the film's soundtrack. A performance from the Serious Moonlight Tour was included on the live album Serious Moonlight (Live '83), which was part of the 2018 box set Loving the Alien (1983–1988) and released as a standalone album in 2019. Bowie's performance of the song at the Glastonbury Festival in June 2000 was released in 2018 on Glastonbury 2000.