Recording: It Ain’t Easy, Bombers

David Bowie recorded ‘It Ain’t Easy’ and ‘Bombers’ at Trident Studios on 9 July 1971.

Although this was a Hunky Dory session, neither song was included on the eventual release. ‘It Ain’t Easy’ was held back for the following year’s The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, and ‘Bombers’ remained unreleased until January 1990, when it was a bonus track on the Rykodisc reissue of Hunky Dory.

I certainly haven’t destroyed any of those tracks. I’ve kept them all. I think that maybe that we could put them out as a budget album or something at a later date, the stuff that never really got used. Because there are quite a few. There’s a thing called ‘Bombers’ which is kind of a skit on Neil Young. It’s quite funny.

Rick Wakeman, whose piano was such a key ingredient on Bowie’s fourth album, played harpsichord on ‘It Ain’t Easy’. Dana Gillespie also sang backing vocals.

[Bowie’s manager] Tony Defries had arranged to demo a new Bowie song to attract RCA into a record deal, so we recorded a cover of ‘It Ain’t Easy’ by Ron Davies down at Trident. Dana Gillespie did backing vocals on that song, and we also recorded a rocked-up version of ‘Andy Warhol’ with her. Defries had Bowie on one side of the demo tape and Dana on the other because he was shopping for deals for both.