Quicksand (David Bowie song)

"Quicksand"
Cover of the UK vinyl single
Song by David Bowie
from the album Hunky Dory
Released17 December 1971
Recorded14 July 1971
StudioTrident, London
Genre
Length5:03
LabelRCA
Songwriter(s)David Bowie
Producer(s)Ken Scott, David Bowie

"Quicksand" is a song written by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie and released on his 1971 album Hunky Dory.

Background

"Quicksand" was recorded on 14 July 1971 at Trident Studios in London.[3] This ballad features multi-tracked acoustic guitars and a string arrangement by Mick Ronson. Producer Ken Scott, having recently engineered George Harrison's album All Things Must Pass, attempted to create a similarly powerful acoustic sound with this track.[4]

Bowie said of the song, "The chain reaction of moving around throughout the bliss and then the calamity of America produced this epic of confusion. Anyway with my esoteric problems I could have written it in Plainview or Dulwich" and that it was a mixture of "narrative and surrealism".[5]

Lyrically the song, like much of Bowie's work at this time, was influenced by Buddhism ("You can tell me all about it on the next Bardo"), occultism, and Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the Superman.[6] It refers to the magical society Golden Dawn and name-checks one of its most famous members, Aleister Crowley, as well as Heinrich Himmler, Winston Churchill and Juan Pujol (codename: Garbo).[7]

David Bowie "Quicksand" (1971)
30-second sample from David Bowie's "Quicksand".
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Reception

NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray have described it as "Bowie in his darkest and most metaphysical mood",[6] while a contemporary review in Rolling Stone remarked on its "superb singing" and "beautiful guitar motif from Mick Ronson".[8]

Live performances

Bowie performed the song during his 1997 Earthling Tour. A live recording from one show on 20 July 1997, recorded at Long Marston, England during the Phoenix Festival, was released in a live album entitled Look at the Moon! in February 2021.[9] Bowie performed the song occasionally during his 2003-04 A Reality Tour.

Bowie performed the song at his 50th birthday concert in 1997 along with Robert Smith of The Cure.[5]

Other releases

The song was released as the B-side of the single "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" in April 1974. RCA included the song in the picture disc set Life Time.

An impromptu hotel room performance of the song, recorded in San Francisco in February 1971, was released for the first time in 2022 on the multi-disc box set Divine Symmetry: The Journey to Hunky Dory.[10] A studio demo version of "Quicksand", recorded in London in spring 1971, was first released as a bonus track on the Rykodisc release of Hunky Dory in 1990.

An alternate mix of the song from the mid-July 1971 recording sessions, mixed in late July for a special not-for-sale promotional album (pressed that summer for use by record company contacts and later known as BOWPROMO), received its first official CD release on the Divine Symmetry box set.[11] That set also includes an early, previously unreleased take of "Quicksand" from the mid-July 1971 sessions, mixed in 2021.[12]

A November 1996 tour rehearsal recording of the song, which originally aired on a BBC radio broadcast in 1997, was released in 2020 on the album ChangesNowBowie.[13]

Personnel

Notes

  1. ^ "The Top 150 Albums of the '70s". Treble. 12 August 2019. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
  2. ^ Wawzenek, Bryan (11 January 2016). "David Bowie Albums Ranked Worst to Best". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
  3. ^ Kevin Cann (2010). Any Day Now - David Bowie: The London Years: 1947-1974: pp.223-224
  4. ^ David Buckley (1999). Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story: p.115
  5. ^ a b Pegg, Nicholas. The Complete David Bowie. p. 181.
  6. ^ a b Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: p.41
  7. ^ David Sheppard (2007). "Wishful Beginnings", MOJO 60 Years of Bowie: p.24
  8. ^ John Mendelsohn (6 January 1972). "Hunky Dory". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 27 January 2007.
  9. ^ Kreps, Daniel (29 January 2021). "David Bowie's 'Brilliant Live Adventures' Series Continues With 1997 Festival Gig". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 29 January 2021.
  10. ^ Divine Symmetry: The Journey to Hunky Dory (Album liner notes). David Bowie. Worldwide: Parlophone. 2022. p. 14. DBDS 71.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  11. ^ Divine Symmetry: The Journey to Hunky Dory p.36 (Album liner notes). David Bowie. Worldwide: Parlophone. 2022. p. 36. DBDS 71.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  12. ^ Divine Symmetry: The Journey to Hunky Dory p.93 (Album liner notes). David Bowie. Worldwide: Parlophone. 2022. p. 93. DBDS 71.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  13. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (25 April 2020). "ChangesNowBowie – David Bowie". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 29 April 2020. Retrieved 1 December 2020.

References

Pegg, Nicholas, The Complete David Bowie, Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, 2000, ISBN 1-903111-14-5