from THE COMPLETE DAVID BOWIE by Nicolas Pegg.
2009 edition. Page 112-113


IT'S HARD TO BE A SAINT IN THE CITY
(Springsteen)
• Compilation: S+V, 74/79


Like Bowie's earlier cover Growin' Up, this toughtalking portrait of urban America hails originally from Bruce Springsteen's 1973 debut Greetings From Ashbury Park,N.J., an album that had a considerable impact on David at the time. His old friend and sometime backing vocalist Geoff MacCormack recalls that the love affair began in New York in January 1973, when he and David chanced to see Springsteen perform one night at Max's Kansas City: "The album was on our turntables the next morning."

When playing a selection of his favourite records on Radio 1's Star Special some years later in 1979, David included Springsteen's [sic] It's Hard To Be Saint In The City, remarking that "after I heard this track I never rode the subway again... That really scard the living ones out of me."

While working on his own version during the second phase of the Sigma Young Americans sessions in November 1974, Bowie recieved an unexpected visit from the Boss himself.
As he recalled many years later,
"A Philadelphia DJ who was quite a supporter of mine said, 'You're doing these Springsteen numbers, do you want me to get Bruce down?' He brought Bruce down, and I was out of my wig. I just couldn't relate to him at all. It was a bad time for us to have met. I could see what he was thinking, 'Who is the wierd guy?', and I was thinking, 'What do I say to normal people?' There was a real impasse. But I still think he was one of the better American songwriters around in those early days."

The rumour that Springsteen contributed to Bowie's version of It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City is almost certainly untrue. "I remember chickening out of playing it," David said. "I didn't want to play it to him because I wasn't happy with it anyway."

For many years the track remained unreleased, languishing in the vaults until it was finally mixed for inclusion on Sound + Vision and latterly Best of 1974/1979. Both these releases list it as a Station To Station out-take, and although rumours persist that a second version was indeed cut at Cherokee in 1975, the available version is undoubtedly the Young Americans cut, confirmed by the unmistakable piano of Mike Garson and a shimmering string arrangement which has Tonny Visconti's fingerprints all over it. It's a fine, robust rendition of one of Springsteen's better compositions, with Bowie on spectaular vocal form.

Still I think that Bowie vocal is not from Young Americans sessions!

Me too!

I'm still puzzling about this. I don't want to repeat myself too much, but I really don't hear 'Young Americans' in 'It's hard to b e a saint in the city': no electric guitars from Carlos Alomar, no saxophone, no backing vocals. The overall sound is also different. Maybe the song consists of recording sessions in between the regular and known sessions for 'Young Americans' , 'Station to Station' (and or 'Diamond Dogs') indeed. Not the 'Fame'/'Across the universe' sessions, because Harry Maslin was there in charge too.

Rumours have more often proved to be more than just rumours alone. For years no one would have thought 'Shilling the rubes' was a real song, until the Sigma Reel showed up last year. So rumours of an existing 'Station to Station' version as Nicolas Pegg says, might as well mean that there are still two versions of 'It's hard to be a saint in the city'.

And let's not forget: memories aren't too reliable all the time. Especially not after 35+ years I would say!

To be continued..... (hopefully)

I heard the track for the first time (I think) today... The reason for this being that I had abandoned Bowie during the 1980'ies.. ( my apologizes to you folks here and to David Bowie off course). it wasn't until Black Tie White Noise that I got interested again.

okay.. to me Bowie's vocals sounds pre-Station To Station. His voice is floating up in those high-pitch tones and then down to "normal", like he did post-Ziggy and pre-Station To Station. I am positively sure of this!

however...
I agree that musicwise it doesn't at all sound like something from Young Americans-sessions, except for the intro that sounds very 1975'ish. There's no funky Willie Weeks bass! could it be Tony Visconti playing?

and the guitars does not sound like Carlos Alomar to me .. at least it doesn't sound like his special guitarstyle.

yes totally agree with Sebastiaan's comment:

For me this track was recorded between YA and SS albums in ANYWHERE!

I got an email from Carlos Alomar! I sent him a link to the 'It's hard to be a saint in the city' recording and asked him three questions. It took a little time, but he did answer me in the end. I think his words are very interesting.

My questions:

1. Do you have any memories of the 'It's hard to be a saint in the city' recording during the 'Young Americans' sessions?
2. Do you recognize (some elements in) the released 'It's hard to be a saint in the city'? To me for example it is really strange that I don't hear your electric guitar on it, whereas you are so prominent audible on both the 'Young Americans' and 'Station to Station' record. If this song really dates from 'Young Americans', you should be on it (as is Dave Sanborn's saxophone and all the beautiful backing vocals), but I don't hear you play on it!
3. Can you confirm Harry Maslin's words that 'It's hard to be a saint in the city' was definitely not recorded during the 'Station to Station' sessions?

This is his reply:


Hello Sabastian,
It seems that you REALLY need an answer so,....
1- I have absolutely no memory of this song being on the Young Americans album.
2- None of the musicians on this song sound like the YA troupe or S2S band. To be honest with you ,today was the first time I listened to the song. I am not playing on this song.
3- Harry is correct.
David must have picked up a band. or taken some generic tracks that we did and cut them up to produce this track. But his vocal acrobatics tell me that it was sung during his 1972-1976 vocal range.
Carlos Alomar


It seems he doesn't think this is the Young Americans track either! Or am I misinterpreting?

Before and in addition to this, I have been thinking about the electric guitar you hear on the song. If it's not Earl Slick? Who else could it be?
Maybe it is Bowie himself. Because if you listen closely to the distorted guitar Bowie plays at the end of for example 'Sweet Thing' (the reprise part), you hear almost the same guitar sound. For example just before Bowie sings 'I was the king of the alley, mama, I could talk some trash', to me that sounds similar to what he's playing on 'Sweet Thing (reprise)'.

If this is true, it might be a little more proof that this song may have something to do with earlier recording sessions than is generally assumed, Diamond Dogs maybe, and that somewhere/anytime later on, the song (for instance the vocal part) has been finished. Maybe with another band that Bowie picked up somewhere as Carlos Alomar writes. And as Shooky probably rightly said before, as "one-off cover versions recorded independently that don't sit together with complete album concepts".

But I'm not giving up to this mystery, until the whole story is revealed!

i'm with sebastiaan on the guitar player. in fact in the past week or two the song popped into my head and the guitar sound reminded me of EXACTLY that same part of Sweet Thing. let's not forget that Bowie played all the guitars on Diamond Dogs besides Alan Parker's contributions to 1984 and Rebel Rebel. also Diamond Dogs was recorded a year after Springsteen's version was released and, with Bowie in the States during this period, it's highly likely he heard it early on and wanted to record it, just as he had with Growin' Up.

my guess then, is that it's a DD outtake, perhaps in its entirety. but, if not, then one that was revisited at a later date using the basic DD track. Mike Garson was of course present for DD and YA and may have recorded his piano during either session, or BETWEEN sessions which is why he may not remember exactly when. he may have recorded it without knowing what the finished song was too, of course.

sebastiaan, if you want to continue your research, i'd try to track down Tony Newman (currently in Las Vegas apparently) and Aynsley Dunbar (AynsleyDunbar@aynsleydunbar.com) to see if they recognise their playing style on the track.

Thanks Shooky. I already sent Aynsley Dunbar an email the other day. So I am waiting for his reply.

I also tried to track down Tony Visconti's address, but that really didn't work out I guess. (I'm not very much into Facebook, Myspace etc. As a matter of fact, my first message on Myspace has been the Carlos Alomar email!).

I love this thread - what a great investigation this is turning into!

The more I hear it, and the more I think about it, IHTBASITC certainly doesn't sound like a Station era song, OR a YA era song. The strongest parallels are with Diamond Dogs and as the investigation continues it seems like this is the most likely option. No Carlos, no Sanborn rules out YA sessions, it really doesn'y sound like Dennis Davis on the drums, nor Slick on the guitar, so that rules out STS as well. The strings are strongly reminiscent of "1984" especially the early medley with "Dodo" and the guitar sounds match the Diamond Dogs style pretty closely. The drumming could indeed be Anysley Dunbar, the drums are complex and 'busy' which is his style.

A reply from Dunbar might finally get to the bottom of this mystery.

Well done to everyone who's found out stuff. It's fascinating.

Cheers,

Richard

This is Tony's website http://www.tonyvisconti.com/ there is a link to contact him there and he is usually pretty good at answering people.

I think Visconti could hold the key to this one.

His book mentions that the song (or a version of) was recorded at the Sigma Sound sessions, but there are no specific details about it's recording.

Assuming that the Sigma version forms the basic track for the one that was eventually released, it points to Mike Garson with Andy Newmark on drums and Willie Weeks on bass.

Weeks and Newmark weren't involved in the New York sessions, probably due to recording and touring commitments around that time with the likes of George Harrison, Ron Wood and Rod Stewart (according this article - http://www.bassplayer.com/article/willi ... l-05/11378 - no mention of Bowie).

The bass style is certainly within Weeks' repertoire, and the artists he played with prior to the YA sessions (Rufus and Donnie Hathaway) certainly back up the style in IHTBASITC (in my mind at least). I found a couple of clips on youtube (one with Andy Newmark in 1974) to demonstrate his style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-IpB_SDC3U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZxdCXoPt9U

Maybe it's one of the songs Visconti took back to London to dub on strings at Air Studios? I think we all agree that it sounds like one of his string arrangements. Maybe it was Visconti who added the acoustic guitar at this stage?

So many questions...

Wasnt "hard to be a saint" sung/wrote by BRuce springsteen. bowie was also in the studio at the same time as springsteen and I thought I heard that one of Sprinsteens player/group played on the bowie version of hard to be a saint. couldnt this have been enough to change the feel of the song and even maybe give bowie ideas for his next album/sound and there must be a time between songs where there is an song that doesnt quite fit into either album.

dont forget that "Growin up" was also recorded at the same time. I found this just to add to the puzzle.

"Perhaps the most intriguing interpreter of these early Springsteen songs has been David Bowie. Bowie recorded "Growin' Up" and "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" around the time of his Pin-Up sessions and though he wisely chose to release neither of them at the time"

I also heard that the player from the springsteen band (That played on IHTBAS) didnt want any recognition as he would be dumped by HIS band BECAUSE springsteen didnt really like bowie or his music.

This might help a bit.
David and the band had been recording their rehearsals for 3 days, and I could hear the problem he had with the sound. In those days, in America, engineers recorded "dry" and "flat", waiting for the mix to add the equalization, reverbs and special effects. But the British often recorded with the special effects right on the session! I was British-trained and David was used to this sound! So I rolled up my sleeves and got right into it. By 2 am we'd recorded our first official backing track -- "Young Americans."

The session guys were great to record with. My fears were quickly dispelled. To contrast the "slickness" of Nemark, Weeks and Sanborn, David was trying out a gang of NYC kids from the Bronx, whose manager had sent in a demo tape weeks earlier. They were Carlos Alomar on guitar, his wife Robin Clark on vocals and their vocalist friend Luther Vandross! What a lineup! Mike Garson on piano was the only link left over from the Spiders From Mars days. It was agreed we had to record live, no overdubs! But David also wanted to record his vocals live in the same room! This presented a big problem because the instruments were much louder than his voice, so I had to rig up a special microphone technique which canceled the band but recorded his voice. This required two identical microphones placed electronically out of phase. In other words, the diaphragm of one mike is pushing when the other is pulling. The band's sound is picked up by the two mikes, but is out of phase and consequently canceled! David was told to sing only into the top mike so that his voice was not canceled! For the non-technically-minded this probably doesn't make any sense, but it saved the day, and what you hear on the recordings is about 85% "live" David Bowie.

My thoughts are that the song was recorded during the Astronettes sessions. It sounds very similar to Spirits in the night which was released on the People from bad homes album. To my ears, theres a similar piano sound and many other similarities. Maybe that was the only track recorded at the time that ended up with Bowie's lead vocals and therefore it was released by Ryco.