Loving the Alien

"Loving the Alien"
Single by David Bowie
from the album Tonight
B-side Don't Look Down
Released May 1985
Format 7"/12" single
Recorded Le Studio, Morin Heights, May 1984
Length 7:11 (album version)
4:43 (single remix)
Label EMI
EA195
Producer(s)
David Bowie singles chronology
"This Is Not America"
(1985)		 "Loving the Alien"
(1985)		 "Dancing in the Street"
(1985)
7" Picture Disc Cover
EAP 195 (UK)
12" Picture Disc Cover
SEAV-7860 (US)
Music video
"Loving the Alien" on YouTube

"Loving the Alien" is a song written and recorded by David Bowie. It was the opening track of his 1984 album Tonight. One of two tracks on the album written solely by Bowie, an edited version of the song was released as a single in May 1985, nine months after the release of lead single "Blue Jean" and eight months after the release of the album. "Loving the Alien" reached No. 19 in the UK Singles Chart. The song explored Bowie’s "intense dislike" of organised religion.[1] "Loving the Alien" inspired the title of Christopher Sandford's 1997 biography of Bowie.

Background

As a demo track, the song was simply called "1". Bowie said "'Alien' came about because of my feeling that so much history is wrong - as is being rediscovered all the time - and that we base so much on the wrong knowledge that we've gleaned."[2] He recorded the demo in Montreux, Switzerland.[3] He would later comment that the production on the song undid the power of the lyric, saying he preferred the demo version.[4] The music video was co-directed by Bowie with frequent collaborator David Mallet.

Reception

Bowie's biographer David Buckley called it "the only track on the album with the gravitas of much of his earlier work".[5] Journalist Dylan Jones described it as "definitely the best song from the Tonight album".[1] Yo Zushi of the New Statesman described the song as a "seven-minute masterpiece".[6] While critical of much of Bowie's 1980s output in his appraisal of Best of Bowie in 2002, BBC reviewer Chris Jones stated: "Loving The Alien does have a strange distant beauty to it. Like watching a ballet through a telescope."[7]

Track listing

7": EMI America / EA 195 / EAP 195 (UK)

  1. "Loving the Alien" (Re-mixed version) (Bowie) – 4:43
  2. "Don't Look Down" (Re-mixed version) (Pop, Williamson) – 4:04

12": EMI America SEAV-7860 / 12EA 195 / 12EAP 195 (UK)

  1. "Loving the Alien" (Extended Dance Mix) (Bowie) – 7:27
  2. "Don't Look Down" (Extended Dance Mix) (Pop, Williamson) – 4:50
  3. "Loving the Alien" (Extended Dub Mix) (Bowie) – 7:14

Download: EMI / iEA 195 (UK)

  1. "Loving the Alien" (Re-mixed version) (Bowie) – 4:43
  2. "Don't Look Down" (Re-mixed version) (Pop, Williamson) – 4:04
  3. "Loving the Alien" (Extended Dance Mix) (Bowie) – 7:27
  4. "Loving the Alien" (Extended Dub Mix) (Bowie) – 7:14
  5. "Don't Look Down" (Extended Dance Mix) (Pop, Williamson) – 4:50

Live performances

Bowie performed the song on his 1987 Glass Spider Tour.[4] On the Reality Tour in 2003 and 2004, he again performed this song, but this time a stripped down version with only Bowie on vocals and Gerry Leonard on guitar; in the film of the tour, Bowie remarked that this arrangement was perhaps "the way it should have always been done."

Other releases

It appears on several Bowie compilation albums, including Bowie: The Singles 1969-1993 (1993), Changestwobowie (1998 reissue), some versions of Best of Bowie (2002), Sound + Vision (2003 and 2014 reissues), The Best of David Bowie 1980/1987 (2007), ISELECT (2008), and Nothing Has Changed (3-CD version) (2014). The original uncensored video for "Loving the Alien" also appears on the "Day-In Day-Out Video EP" released in 1987.

Cover versions

"Loving the Alien" has been covered by several other artists. These include:

Charts

Chart (1985) Peak
position
Australian Kent Report Singles Chart 65
German Singles Chart 27
Irish Singles Chart 9
UK Singles Chart 19

Production credits

Producers
Musicians

The Scumfrog vs Bowie

"The Scumfrog vs Bowie : Loving the Alien"
The cover for the single shows the name of the artists and the song on a black background with purple dots
Single by David Bowie; The Scumfrog
A-side "Loving the Alien"
B-side "8 Days, 7 Hours"
Released 2002
Format CD
Length 3:20 (single version)
Label Nettwerk America

In 2002, Dutch producer The Scumfrog made a club mix of the song and released it as a single together with the original video of the song.

Track listing

  1. "Loving the Alien (Radio edit)" - 3:20
  2. "Loving the Alien (Original Club mix)" - 8:23
  3. "8 Days, 7 Hours (by Scumfrog)" - 7:43
  4. "Loving the Alien (video)"

References

  1. 1 2 Jones, Dylan (1 August 2008). "Loving the Alien: Never before seen pictures of David Bowie". Daily Mail. Retrieved 25 May 2016.
  2. ↑ Murray, Charles Shaar (25 October 1984), "Let's Talk, A Conversation with David Bowie", Rolling Stone magazine (433): 14, 18, 74
  3. ↑ Fricke, David (December 1984), "David Bowie Interview", Musician magazine (74): 46–56
  4. 1 2 Bromberg, Craig (June 1990), "David Bowie (Interview)", Smart: 50–57
  5. ↑ Buckley, David (2015). David Bowie: The Music and The Changes. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1780389882. Retrieved 30 August 2016.
  6. ↑ Zushi, Yo (18 January 2016). "In defence of "bad" Bowie: why his least acclaimed album is my favourite". New Statesman. Retrieved 16 August 2016.
  7. ↑ Jones, Chris. "David Bowie Best Of Review". BBC. Retrieved 16 August 2016.
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