and now two new titles ("Fish" & "Shady") from the STS sessions have been revealed. These, with the "Sister Midnight" studio version mentioned recently, and the STS version of "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City"... ugh. Maybe Bowie doesn't want to give EMI anymore songs they don't already have? Here's hoping for really exciting releases after the expiration of his contract.

http://www.liberation.fr/culture/010122 ... agie-noire



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for the monolingual among us, can anyone translate that reference to the STS session? "fish" and "shady" sound like working titles at best, so would be good to know the backstory.



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Basically it is saying, "songs like 'Fish' and 'Shady' were left behind, and Bowie resumed and completed his version of 'It's Hard to be a Saint in the City' that he started during the Young Americans sessions"



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that's a little vague without verification, but may inspire someone to research it.



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Much like the "Sister Midnight" briefly mentioned in Uncut(?) recently. These journalist have to realise that there are those of us out there that know every song title, and just mentioning something new can cause quite a disturbance. I wish they would be more clear about from where and why these titles were suddenly mentioned.



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and of course that comment on IHTBASITC goes against the current thinking (at least among some of us here) that it was begun if not completed during the Diamond Dogs sessions.



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I was thinking the same. And was this information derived from Carlos Alomar? I think the info gathered on the song here makes a lot of sense, but generally goes against what is commonly known/written about the song.



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information gets repeated without confirmation and record labels make mistakes which are taken as fact (ryko made quite a few on their reissue program and theirs was the first release of IHTBASITC, so nobody countered the claim), so it takes a fan to raise the question. alomar confirmed he wasn't on the session, which led to the suggestion it was bowie alone handling the guitar parts and the similarity in tone to the DD sound. that he recorded growin' up between Pin Ups and DD (if i remember correctly) also adds weight to the argument.



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I'm surprised no one ever asked Bowie himself back when he was in constant communication on Bowienet. Although he has always been good at avoiding questions he doesn't care to answer, so perhaps someone did and he just ignored it. Or perhaps he just associates it with the time period he remembers nothing about.



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To me it sounds like IHTBASITC has some connection with the Astronettes sessions. It has a similar feel to some of the songs on the People from bad homes album. And they did tackle some covers.



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i think you may be on to something here. the initial Astronettes and DD sessions occurred concurrently at Olympic in London. very noteworthy is the presence of Garson but absence of Alomar at Olympic, with guitarist Mark Carr Pritchard in attendance.

and, of course, the same period produced the Astronettes version of Spirit In The Night and Bowie's version of Growin' Up, all three deriving from the first Springsteen album. (Ryko mistakenly placed Growin' Up as a Pin Ups bonus when it was recorded early in the DD/Astronettes sessions.)

so... begun at Olympic during DD/Astronettes sessions with Aynsley Dunbar, Herbie Flowers, Mike Garson and Mark Carr Pritchard during Oct-Dec '73, continued at Sigma Sound (perhaps only vocals?) sometime between Aug '74 and Jan '75, strings recorded early '75 at Air Studios and mixed by Visconti. mistakenly credited as an STS outtake in '89 by Ryko.

how's that sound?



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or skip the '75 period completely and assume strings were added in '74 (1984, I Am Divine etc)?



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We're getting a little off topic, but I think you're right Shooky. Strings from '74, vocals probably added the last ('75?). Still I'm not totally convinced it's not George Murray on bass (but Alomar more or less said it's not Murray).
Unfortunately Aynsley Dunbar never replied to my email with questions about his involvement in the song.
Recently I bought the books 'Never get old' by Wim Hendrikse. In part 2 on page 362, he writes that 'It's hard to be a saint in the city', was recorded three times:
- a demo during Pin Ups sessions in 1973;
- a demo during Young Americans sessions;
- the Young Americans outtake (the one that's released).
As a matter of fact, this is the first time I read about an earlier recording (apart from this forum of course). Hendrikse doesn’t give a source.
Interestingly, he also mentions a 'I am a laser' recording from 1974 with Bowie's lead vocal, recorded in july/august 1974. That sounds like the one from the Sigma reel tape. How did he know?



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Hey shooky, I think we've nailed it!



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Anyone have the conclusion about the real date?