Cover artwork
David Bowie considered calling the album The Return Of The Thin White Duke, and Golden Years, before settling on Station To Station.
Two key photo sessions took place in May 1976, shortly before filming The Man Who Fell To Earth. The first was at Tom Kelley’s studio on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, which was intended as a publicity shoot for the ‘Fame’ single.
Kelley’s images were judged to be so successful by Bowie and RCA that they were used on a number of record releases, including the 1976 compilation ChangesOneBowie.
The other key session was with Steve Schapiro, who appeared to be Bowie’s favoured photographer during this period. It began at 4pm and lasted 12 hours, and involved many costume changes. The session ended with Bowie, wearing oversized glasses and a shirt depicting wildlife scenes, sitting astride a motorbike.
In one sequence, Bowie, wearing a blue top and trousers painted with diagonal white stripes, drew Kabbalah symbols and diagrams on the walls and floor. This look was resurrected by Bowie in the video for the song ‘Lazarus’, released on 7 January 2016.
When we did our shoot in ’74, he went into the dressing room and he painted these diagonal white stripes on his outfit and painted his toes white. And when we saw the ‘Lazarus’ video, he had repeated that outfit for the first time. He was in a very spiritual mood in ’74 and this sort of continued that whole spiritual sense that David had.
Cool Hunting, April 2016
When Station To Station was reissued in 1991 the back cover featured one of Schapiro’s images, of Bowie sketching Kaballah’s ten Sephirot, also known as the Tree of Life, on the studio floor. The incident was also immortalised in the lyrics of ‘Breaking Glass’ on the Low album.
Schapiro also took the cover photograph for the Station To Station album, which was taken on the set of The Man Who Fell To Earth.
In re: the album’s content, I think that the pleas to God and declarations of love are more those of desperation/insincerity. In ‘Word On A Wing’, he sounds uncertain about whether he is actually willing to commit to God or not — almost reluctantly trying hard to fit in the scheme of things. ‘Wild Is The Wind’, on the other hand, is almost obsessive in its desire to ‘satisfy this hungriness’, and the meaning becomes hollow when looked at from the perspective of the Thin White Duke character being ‘a would-be romantic with absolutely no emotion but who spouted a lot of neo-romance’.
At least, that’s my cynical take on the album. 🙂
“Word On a Wing”, to me, is the offer of a man who has a great deal of pride and self-respect to serve God, but on terms which are agreeable to him. He still cares for himself and doesn’t stand in his own light. It is the approach of a little god to the big God, accepting the latter’s supreme authority but at the same time asserting some degree of independence and control over the relationship that he wants to build between them.
This theme is revisited in Blackstar, with the conversation the dying or deceased Bowie has with God. “You’re a flash in the pan, I’m the big I am”. “I am” is, of course, how God referred to himself in Exodus. God is asserting his primacy over Bowie whilst paradoxically acknowledging that Bowie has a certain god-like status.
Bought this when it came out. Never opened it, and still sealed. Many, many times I’ve been tempted to! Curious to know how much it’s valued at now (unopened/mint obvs.).
When he performed ‘Five Years’ it was dramatically lit with just a spot from just below him at the front of the stage. When the last drumbeat sounded all the lights went out except for the spot and he held his hands to his temples w/an abject look of confusion of fear. Then the spot went out. One of the most brilliant, simple, effective uses of stagecraft I’ve ever seen.