C'mon, Let's Go Slip Away

For in truth, it's the beginning of nothing/And nothing has changed/Everything has changed...

After a period of nearly four years, David Bowie's series of "Eras" box sets has continued with its sixth and final volume.  I Can't Give Everything Away (2002-2016), from ISO Records and Parlophone, concludes the career-spanning chronicle of the shape-shifting superstar on 13 CDs or 18 LPs. Picking up where 2021's Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) left off, it vividly re-presents the final years of an artist for whom "iconoclastic" barely scratches the surface.  In a sense, every one of the seven records in the box defied expectations.  Though Bowie was already an elder statesman of rock by 2002, he wasn't content to merely regurgitate old sounds or revive past glories.  While many of these records have a reflective tone matched by the singer's deep, resonant croon, there's a freshness and vitality that's hardly diminished in the ensuing years since their original release.

Heathen, originally released in June 2002, introduces the ethos of this period.  With nothing to prove, Bowie and producer Tony Visconti - reuniting for the first time since 1980's Scary Monsters - were seemingly relaxed and content to be practicing the craft of making music.  It's awash in atmospherics, recalling the richness of Bowie's 1970s work, yet steeped in its own era with tastefully incorporated electronics.  It also powerfully captures the mood and spirit of post-9/11 New York City even though Bowie took pains to point out that the songs were written before the events of that tragic day.  Heathen was recorded in New York with a band including guitarists Carlos Alomar, Gerry Leonard, and Mark Plati; drummer Sterling Campbell; The Borneo Horns; The Scorchio [String] Quartet; violinist Lisa Germano; and others.

The haunting, somewhat mysterious "Sunday" draws the listener into Heathen before Bowie quickly reasserts his glam cred with a stomping cover of Pixies' "Cactus."  Despite the presence of that song from the Boston band, Heathen is very much a New York album.  "Slip Away" invokes Coney Island and the New York Yankees as well as local New Jersey public access star Uncle Floyd and his puppet pal Oogie in a moving meditation on the passage of time and mortality.  Darkness is on Bowie's mind throughout Heathen, with "Slow Burn" (featuring Pete Townshend on guitar and Tony Visconti on bass) conjuring a portrait of a city in the throes of darkness and anxiety.  "Everyone Says Hi" ruminates on loss even as it reminds of Bowie's mastery of pop songcraft with its felicitous melody and strong bridge.  The brisk and biting rocker "Afraid," like "Slip Away," originated on the abortive Toy.  Graced with a majestic Visconti string arrangement, it wryly addresses fear.  In a reference to John Lennon's "God," Bowie boldly proclaims "I believe in Beatles" - and why not?

Dave Grohl played the wailing guitar on "I've Been Waiting for You," a Neil Young oldie by way of Pixies' cover.  Bowie had previously played it live with Tin Machine, and as with "Cactus" and The Legendary Stardust Cowboy's "I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship," he makes the song his own.  The latter song's mannered, borderline-camp vocal and thick production with saxophone, strings, and a nonstop beat bring a shot of levity.  Yet there's a pervasive undercurrent of melancholy, too, that comes to the fore on "5:15 (The Angels Have Gone)." Its soaring chorus is one of the album's most memorable.

Though the title of the album is Heathen, "I Wanna Be Your Slave" can be interpreted as an ode to a higher power.  In keeping with Bowie's enigmatic persona, the title phrase is also a line spoken by Bowie as Jareth, The Goblin King in Jim Henson's 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth.  The track's air of mystery is aided by Visconti's dramatic orchestration.  The possible conversation with a deity continues on "A Better Future," a hope by new father Bowie for happier times ahead for his daughter.  On the closing track "Heathen (The Rays)," Bowie concludes not on an optimistic note but on one of dread.  Quoting George Harrison and "all things must pass," he ponders his own mortality in song - a thread which would continue through his final recordings.

But I Can't Give Everything Away (2002-2016) continues with the joyful explosion of Montreux Jazz Festival: July 18, 2002, recorded just weeks after Heathen's June 10 release.  Bowie seamlessly integrates new songs ("Sunday," "I Would Be Your Slave," "Slip Away," "5:15 (The Angels Have Gone)," "Heathen (The Rays)," "I've Been Waiting for You," "Everyone Says Hi") with classics from the '70s ("Ziggy Stardust," "Changes," "Fame," "Starman," "Life on Mars?") and '80s ("China Girl," "Let's Dance") as well as more recent material ("I'm Afraid of Americans," "Hallo Spaceboy").  With his sympathetic touring band offering able support, Montreux is a (nearly) career-spanning jolt of electricity.

Hey Boy, Welcome to Reality

With 2003's Reality, Bowie delivered a more aggressive, straightforwardly rocking album with songs composed to flourish in a live setting.  The opaque lyrics to the crunchy opener "New Killer Star" (a play on the pronunciation of "nuclear") continued the mood of dread established on Heathen while, elsewhere, the album yielded portraits of a woman on the brink ("She'll Drive the Big Car") and a desperate New Yorker stranded in a desert ("Looking for Water").  Covers of The Modern Lovers (the wry "Pablo Picasso," rearranged from its minimalist roots) and George Harrison ("Try Some, Buy Some," given modern-day gloss in place of Phil Spector bombast) add further variety and an element of the unexpected to Reality.

"Never Get Old," an outrageous ode to excess, stands in sharp contrast to "The Loneliest Guy," a slow, bleak, and meditative slice of beautiful melancholia featuring Mike Garson on piano.  (Garson was joined in Bowie's touring band and recording unit by guitarists Earl Slick and Gerry Leonard, drummer Sterling Campbell, and background singers Gail Ann Dorsey and Catherine Russell).  The soft, sensitive "Days" expressed a sentiment of gratitude in a midtempo setting.

"Fall Dogs Bomb the Moon" was decidedly of a fierier nature, perceived at the time as a political comment on Bush-era America.  Sadly, many of its lyrics ("there's always someone to hate") still ring true today.  The muscular and prescient title track is accompanied by an impressionistic lyric which reflects the fracturing of any shared reality for Americans.  Bowie concluded Reality with "Bring Me the Disco King."  It had been kicking around for almost a decade and was considered for both Black Tie, White Noise and Earthling.  The jazz-inflected recording that closes Reality anticipated Bowie's later immersions into the genre.

Bowie launched A Reality Tour on October 7, 2003 - less than one month after its September 15 release.  He was supported by Earl Slick and Gerry Leonard on guitar, Mark Plati on bass and guitar, Gail Ann Dorsey on bass and vocals, Sterling Campbell on drums, Mike Garson on piano and keyboards, and Catherine Russell on keys, percussion, guitar, and vocals.  Bowie led this dynamic group through a tour of his career from The Man Who Sold the World (1970) through Reality, including hits and fan favorites like "Heroes", "Ziggy Stardust", "Changes", "Fame", "Ashes to Ashes," "Life on Mars?," "All the Young Dudes," and "Rebel, Rebel" as well as collaborations "Sister Midnight" and "Under Pressure."  The tour took the artist to North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and The Bahamas for 112 shows before it was curtailed due to Bowie's health.  In October 2004, A Reality Tour was issued on DVD, capturing the Point Theatre, Dublin performances of November 2003.  In 2010, the audio to the concerts was released on CD.  This presentation has been resequenced to place the original bonus tracks into proper concert order.  One listen reveals how passionately engaged Bowie was onstage, and reminds the listener of just how shocking the tour's abrupt conclusion and his subsequent retreat from the public eye turned out to be.

They Can't Get Enough of It All

A new David Bowie album didn't emerge for ten years.  When the artist re-emerged, it was with one of the finest albums of his career.  TSD reviewed The Next Day on March 12, 2013, and that review has been re-presented below.

In 1980's "Ashes to Ashes," David Bowie famously revealed "Major Tom's a junkie, strung out in heavens high, hitting an all-time low."  This continuation of the story begun in 1969's "Space Oddity" was as definitive a statement as any on the man's unsentimental, decidedly not rose-colored view of the past.  So, it was a surprise when, on his 66th birthday, Bowie announced his first album in ten years and offered "Where Are We Now" to the world.  A somber, elegiac and darkly lovely rumination through the streets of Berlin as delivered by an older, wiser man, "Where Are We Now" signaled an elder statesman in a mournful, soul-searching state of near-tranquility: "As long as there's sun/As long as there's rain/As long as there's fire/As long as there's me/As long as there's you."  Meeting expectations, though, via the art of defying them (always a specialty of Bowie's), the artist has both invoked and laid to rest the ghosts of Ziggy Stardust and The Thin White Duke with a searing collection of original songs that conclusively prove age hasn't mellowed David Bowie.  Indeed, "Where Are We Now" was the calm before the storm.  The Next Day is an angry, electric exploration of where he is now, where he was then, and where he will likely be "The Next Day."

Joined by co-producer Tony Visconti (The Man Who Sold the World, Scary Monsters, Heathen) and a trusted band including guitarists Earl Slick, Gerry Leonard, and David Torn, bassists Gail Ann Dorsey and Tony Levin, drummers Zachary Alford and Sterling Campbell, and saxophonist Steve Elson, Bowie seems liberated to pursue his muse via a host of characters ravaged by violence, war and a pervasive celebrity culture.   The album is enveloped in darkness with only brief flashes of light, yet it's the work of a man who's been hiding in plain sight on the New York streets over the past decade, enjoying his "retirement."  Studio photographs of the Next Day sessions show a fit, trim and smiling Bowie enjoying the art of creation.  The arc of the album from this deliciously contradictory artist, though, is anything but placid. Occasional hints of Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane and Lodger cede to lively, dense, alternately crisp and clattering soundscapes.

Announcing the relentless album opener "The Next Day," Bowie brays, "Here I am, not quite dying/My body left to rot in a hollow tree!"  We're immediately transported to a doomed world of torture, disease and a "purple-headed priest," with no salvation anywhere in sight for "the next day, and the next, and another day..."  Malevolent, metallic guitars stake their claim as Bowie theatrically asserts of those populating the song, "They know God exists because the Devil told them so."  It's the Orwellian dystopia of Diamond Dogs taken to the next level.  It's not long, though, before Bowie roots The Next Day squarely in the here and now.

"(The Stars) Are Out Tonight" is a surreal, nightmarish, and weirdly catchy fantasia.  The meditation on stars, both of the celestial and celebrity variety, is an ironic comment from one of the biggest stars of all time, set to a full-bodied, anthemic rock melody.  These stars "burn you with their radiant smiles, trap you with their beautiful eyes/They're broke and shamed or drunk or scared," Bowie seethes, mockingly (?) adding, "But I hope they live forever."  He's never sounded more confident, but he's still at a remove, distantly detached as three guitars, bass, drums, alto sax, contrabass clarinet, strings and even recorder all contribute to a mightily captivating production.

An unsettling pulse marks "Love is Lost," but that song is mere prelude for the subtly sinister "Valentine's Day."  Set to an inviting melody, both swaggering and muscular, "Valentine's Day" appears to be a glimpse into the mind of a teenager poised to take action in an eerily familiar scenario: "The rhythm of the crowd...Teddy and Judy down...Valentine sees it all" and "Valentine told me how he'd feel/If all the world were under his heel/Or stumbling through the mall..."  It's frightening, subversive and all too timely.

Simple squares, or boxes, are all over the artwork for The Next Day, both on the controversial Heroes-obscuring cover and throughout the foldout booklet.  But Bowie doesn't allow himself to be boxed in as themes weave in and out of the album's tapestry.  Another teenager is embodied on "I'd Rather Be High."  A martial drumbeat from Zachary Alford propels this soldier's tale, juxtaposing literary references ("Nabokov is sun-licked now," the opening lyric goes) with simple pleasures ("I'd rather smoke and phone my ex/Be pleading for some teenage sex") and the reminder that "everybody gets got."  The specters of soldiers and war also hovers over "How Does the Grass Grow," with its taunting refrain lifted (with credit) from Jerry Lordan's 1960 instrumental hit "Apache."  Lordan's song harkens back to Bowie's own formative days, and even beyond "Where Are They Now," depictions and recollections of youth surge through the album.

Most surprisingly, there's funky rock and roll juvenilia on "The Boss of Me."  "Who'd have ever dreamed that a small-town girl like you would be the boss of me?," the singer inquires to the honking sax that veers from jazzy licks to a restrained version of Steve Douglas on Phil Spector's "little symphonies for the kiddies."  There's more relative lightness, too, on the bright "Dancing Out in Space" with its gleaming Motown-esque bounce.  It's far from straightforward, though.  Bowie tantalizingly offers esoteric lyrics and name-checks a 19th century Belgian author: "silent as Georges Rodenbach," he sings.  But youth and violence still recur in an uneasy dance as The Next Day barrels to its conclusion.

Steve Elson's baritone sax slithers through "Dirty Boys" as Bowie drily intones, "I will buy you feather hat, I will steal a cricket bat/Smash some windows, make a noise/We will run with dirty boys."  He addresses the same sense of inevitability that rears its head in "The Next Day" and elsewhere ("When the die is cast and you have no choice/We will run with the dirty boys").  A palpable sense of dread comes on like a freight train in "If You Can See Me," a frantic near-duet with the versatile Gail Ann Dorsey.  The rapid-fire lyrics are rendered stream-of-consciousness style ("I will take your lands and all that lays beneath/The dust of cold flowers prison of dark of ashes/I will slaughter your kind who descend from belief/I am the spirit of greed a lord of theft") as violent images unsettle.

One of the strongest tracks, anchored by its crisp, aggressive guitar blasts, is "You Will Set the World on Fire," a look back to an imagined past.  The setting seems to be Greenwich Village in the anything-is-possible sixties: "Midnight in the Village, Seeger lights the candles/From Bitter End to Gaslight/Baez leaves the stage/Ochs takes notes/When the black girl and guitar burn together hot in rage..."  Earl Slick's soaring guitar leads an exciting blast of pure adrenaline.  A certain "Bobby" is mentioned in "You Will Set the World on Fire," and Bowie seems to be picking up The Bard of Hibbing's venomous torch with a pointedly cruel riposte at a former lover in "[I Hope] You Feel So Lonely You Could Die."  Bowie takes this one in his most persuasive croon, as choral vocals bring drama, piano chords crash and Visconti's strings swell as a majestic counterpoint to the harsh lyrics.

The anguish of "You Feel So Lonely You Could Die" would be a hard act to follow on any album, especially as the penultimate track.  And then a tremulous, spooked voice appears.  "Heat" serves as a haunted bookend to "The Next Day."  With cries of "My father ran the prison" over a disquieting drone, Bowie also plays prominent acoustic guitar while Visconti scores the most evocative and chilling use of strings on the album.  The stirring, anxiety-laden track invites comparison to Scott Walker's modern oeuvre, though Bowie smartly doesn't try to match the sheer impenetrability of the good Mr. Engel's latest works.  "Heat" is a fitting close to an album that's generated plenty of it.

Nearly 30 tracks were reportedly cut for The Next Day, so another album could be forthcoming.  But even if David Bowie heads into another self-imposed retirement, he will have left behind a collection of songs that's as provocative as those that have come before.  It's not a reinvention, but rather a resurgence: a finely-crafted album from a defiantly singular artist.

Some of those additional tracks surfaced on various deluxe editions of The Next Day, and later in 2013, ISO collected the odds and ends plus other previously unreleased material on The Next Day Extra.  A couple of remixes ("Love Is Lost," "I'd Rather Be High") were joined by songs that were often strong enough to have been included on the original LP.  "So She" was bright, sixties-inspired pop.  "This is an instrumental," the album credits accurately and wryly note of the rather slight "Plan."  The Bowie/Gerry Leonard co-write "I'll Take You There" might have been the most comfortable sonic fit for the proper album.  Gail Ann Dorsey and Janice Pendarvis make a strong impression on the harmonies as well as backing Bowie on its rousing chorus of "What will be my name in the USA?  Hold my hand and I'll take you there!"  Another notable cut is the chilling recollection of Bowie's cocaine days, "Like a Rocket Man," in which he knowingly tweaks Elton John in the title for the song he once chided as derivative of his own "Space Oddity." (The two songs shared the same producer, Gus Dudgeon, and upon Bowie's passing, John paid tribute by incorporating "Space Oddity" in a performance of "Rocket Man.")

Something Happened on the Day He Died

It's only fitting that Bowie's farewell, Blackstar, is among his most experimental albums.  It was released on January 8, 2016, and two days later, he was gone.  His cancer diagnosis was unknown to all but his closest confidantes, making the visceral gut-punch of the album even more powerful.

The haunted, haunting title track, the second longest in Bowie's catalogue (and the longest song to have entered the Billboard Hot 100 at that point in time, at 9:57), shifted time signatures, moods, and styles with confidence.  Trip-hop, jazz, electronica, R&B, and rock co-exist on the expansive production.  The specter of Bowie's passing hangs over Blackstar through its somber lyrics and spiky melodies, but there's also a palpable sense of joy in the realization that he was still creating and pushing the envelope until the very end.

An aggressive immediacy and frenetic anxiety permeate "Tis a Pity She Was a Whore," one of two non-LP tracks from 2014 which were recut for the album. (Both original versions are included on this set's Re:Call volume, too.) Again, Bowie artfully blends jazz with hip-hop textures and rock into a synthesis of his own making. The other remake, the "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)," took on a vastly different character than the original. To reinvent the story of a marriage that ends in murder, Bowie and his band stripped it down to the core, unleashing a funky fury driven by Mark Giuliana's wildly unpredictable drums, Tim Lefebvre's stuttering bass, and Ben Monder's stabs of guitar.

"Lazarus," written for the 2015 off-Broadway musical of the same name, attracted the most attention: "Look up here, I'm in heaven..." it begins; ultimately it concludes, "Oh, I'll be free, just like that bluebird. Oh, I'll be free...ain't that just like me." Though Bowie was ostensibly writing for the character of Newton, the Man Who Fell to Earth - the musical was a sequel of sorts to the 1976 film in which Bowie starred - he was also penning, essentially, an epitaph for himself in which he foresaw his own death and his rise, too - the inevitable surge in popularity that would follow upon his passing. The shocking music video, featuring Bowie on his deathbed with a bandage and buttons sewn over his eyes, found him, in effect, staging his own death.

"Girl Loves Me" is hardly the amorous song suggested by its title. Instead, it's a trippy, heavy and hypnotic rock/hip-hop drone with lyrics incorporating Anthony Burgess' Nadsat language from A Clockwork Orange, Polari slang, and even well-placed F-bombs. (Where the fuck did Monday go?)  "Dollar Days" is the languid cooldown, with acoustic piano and saxophone accompanying Bowie's lovely vocal as he muses on mortality and materialism as if in a fever dream. It segues into "I Can't Give Everything Away," the title track of this box set. It's a fittingly beautiful farewell: "Seeing more and feeling less, saying no but meaning yes/This is all I ever meant," he shares. "That's the message that I sent/I can't give everything away..."

We Like Dancing and We Look Divine

As with all of the previous Eras box sets, this final volume features another edition of Re:Call, collecting various non-album odds and ends.  Re:Call 6 comprises three discs and 41 tracks: an expected potpourri of remixes and miscellany from the period including live cuts and bonus tracks initially appended to special editions of Heathen and Reality. With so much strong material, it's a treat hearing these various reimagined and/or alternative versions, including the extended SACD mixes of Heathen tracks.

Re:Call 6 rounds up a healthy number of collaborations including a vibrant (and mutually admiring) live set with Arcade Fire; a cover of Syd Barrett's "Arnold Layne" with David Gilmour; the ironically jaunty "Hop Frog" from Lou Reed's The Raven (the album of his music theatre piece POEtry crafted with avant-garde director Robert Wilson); Kristeen Young's "Saviour" (a Tony Visconti production); and Earl Slick's "Isn't It Evening (The Revolutionary)." While Bowie added his distinctive vocals to the Reed and Young tracks, he wrote lyrics and co-authored the melody of "Isn't It Evening." It was recorded at the same time as Reality and is very much of a piece with that album.

Soundtrack cuts have a spot here, too, such as a dramatically reworked "Bring Me the Disco King" that takes on a cinematic dimension for the 2003 action-horror hybrid Underworld (complete with additional vocals and instrumentation) and a fun revival of "Rebel Rebel" for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle the same year. Always interested in pursuing new sonic avenues, Bowie teamed with electronica songwriter-producer BT for the driving, effects-laden "(She Can) Do That" which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2005 sci-fi film Stealth. A loose, affectionate, and contemporary cover of The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" is another treat in a collection filled with them.

The slipcased set and individual CDs have been designed with customary attention to detail.  The CD jackets utilize differing paper stocks and styles; A Reality Tour, The Next Day, and Blackstar all feature tri-fold sleeves and Re:Call 6 incorporates spot varnish on the cover.  Every disc is housed in a protective sleeve.  The 128-page hardcover book is, essentially, a coffee table book in miniature.  It's packed with striking photos of Bowie as well as memorabilia images (handwritten lyrics, advertisements, sketches, backstage passes).  It includes essays and articles both new (Tony Visconti's reflections on Heathen, Reality, The Next Day, and Blackstar) and old (David Wild on Reality; The Quietus' Chris Roberts on The Next Day; Visconti in NME on The Next Day Extra; The Telegraph's Neil McCormick on Blackstar; and more).  The combination of new and period text places the music in perspective of both the period and Bowie's enduring legacy.  Audio for all albums other than Blackstar and the No Plan EP have been newly remastered for this set with input from Tony Visconti.

While it's doubtful that I Can't Give Everything Away is the last we've heard of the voluminous Bowie archives, it does conclude the story that began with 1969's David Bowie (a.k.a. Space Oddity), the first album in the first Eras box set.  (Sadly, Bowie's self-titled 1967 album for Deram hasn't been regarded as an official part of the canon.)  That story encompassed 25 studio albums and six volumes of Re:Call, plus live sets and soundtracks.  It remains one of the most remarkable oeuvres in all of popular music, and it's hard to imagine a series of box sets better serving it.  I Can't Give Everything Away is an elegant closer to a catalogue that will continue to flourish today, tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and another day.

I Can't Give Everything Away (2002-2016) is available now at the below links.  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

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