Jaga,
I am a fan or fond of the music of Joy Division, David Bowie and the Velvet Underground since the eightees. And there is a link between the three. The Velvet Underground was a New York sixtees band, and the Velvet Underground inspired David Bowie a younger artist in that time. David Bowie promoted and produced some of his rock and roll heroes, two of whom he met at the popular New York hangout Max's Kansas City. One of them was former Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed, whose solo breakthrough Transformer was produced by Bowie and Ronson in 1972.
The number Warsaw is one of the numbers of Bowie's Low album numbers. The album was released in 1977 album. Low is widely regarded as one of his most influential releases, Low was the first of the "
Berlin Trilogy", a series of collaborations with
Brian Eno (though the album was actually recorded mainly in France and only mixed in West Berlin). The experimental, avant-garde style would be further explored on "
Heroes" and "
Lodger". The album's working title was New Music Night and Day. I have all of David Bowies seventees albums and I like this "
Berlin Trilogy", "
Low", "
Heroes" and "
Lodger" very much. "
Heroes" is my favorite album, but "
Low" is exellent too!
"
Warszawa" is a mostly instrumental song by David Bowie, co-written with
Brian Eno and originally released in 1977 on the album Low.
The arrangement is meant to evoke the desolation of Warsaw at the time of Bowie's visit in 1973. The mysterious lyrics and the piece of melody in the middle part of the song are based upon a recording of a Polish folk choir "
Śląsk". Probably this theme based on the melody and words of the old Polish Silesian song "
Helokanie", recorded in advance by choir "
Śląsk". However, there is no information about this, and it remains more or less unanswered.
The piece was developed using many of Eno's spontaneous and deeply experimental techniques, with Bowie choosing the creation of a texture over creating a piece that fit in context with his other songs. Resorting to Eno's techniques of "
planned accidents," first a click track of 430 clicks was created by hand. From these clicks, a few were selected at random and catalogued. Eno and Bowie would each wait for their randomly selected clicks to sound, which would cue them to play a chord. When the clicks were removed, the song's basic skeleton of chord changes remained, and the gaps were filled by their writing, with Eno on instrumentals and Bowie on vocals.
The result is a stunning piece in four sections. The first section is sparse and mainly in octaves. Then at 1 minute 17 seconds the harmony fills out and the key changes to F# and the second section - the longest in the piece - starts. At 3 minutes 47 seconds there is another striking key change, the texture thins out again and Bowie's vocal part starts. At 5 minutes 24 seconds the final section starts and this section basically comprises a repeat of a chunk of the second section.
All vocals were composed and performed entirely by Bowie, despite the presence of 110 voices. Eno remarked that despite his tendency to work slowly as his own synthesizer technician, Bowie managed to complete his portion of the track rather quickly, recording all his voices in 20 minutes.
It was used as a live opener on Bowie's 1978 and 2002 tours. Rather than quickly delving deeply into loud rock music, the song was used to intentionally provoke the audience into a calm, holding them initially in deep suspense. Bowie's choice to maintain a low profile during 1978 was expressed through his entrance to the stage during this song, not singing, but simply sinking into the band and playing the Chamberlin until his cue to sing the lyrics.
The band Joy Division was originally named Warsaw in honor of this song, and it features in the 2007 film about Ian Curtis called 'Control'. First there was the Post-Punk Manchester band Warsaw, later the band was renamed Joy Division and after Ian Curtis suïcide the band was renamed again, and the new name was New Order.
In my student years and artist period I lived with Joy Division music, which was very influential at that period, which was really a sort of Fin de siecle period for me. Sort of fatalistic, melancholic, pessimistic, continuating dark anarchistic mood, which was supported or guided by the Music of Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, Wire, David Bowie, The Velvet Underground and last but not least Sonic Youth. I don't know if I can call that period Nihilist or Obscurantist, because it were productive years too. The atmosphere, sound and lyrics (the poetic message behind the lyrics went deep) of Joy Division had a great influece. Comparable to the works of Dostojewski, Gogol and Kafka! Joy Division covered the Velvent Underground number "Sister Ray".
Pieter
Links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_Divisionen.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Velvet_Undergrounden.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie
