Station To Station - Singles and Unreleased Tracks

Singles and Unreleased Tracks

Every song on Station to Station, with the exception of the title track, eventually appeared on a single. "Golden Years" was released in November 1975, two months before the album. Bowie allegedly got drunk to perform it on TV for the American show Soul Train, resulting in the film clip seen on music video programmes. It reached #8 in the UK and #10 in the US (where it charted for sixteen weeks) but, like "Rebel Rebel"'s relationship to Diamond Dogs (1974), was a somewhat unrepresentative teaser for the album to come.

"TVC15" was released in edited form as the second single in May 1976, reaching #33 in the UK and #64 stateside. "Stay", also shortened and appearing the same month, was issued as a companion 45 to RCA's Changesonebowie greatest hits collection, though it did not appear on the compilation (Changesonebowie was itself packaged as a uniform edition to Station to Station, featuring a black-and-white cover and similar lettering). In November 1981, as Bowie's relationship with RCA was winding down, "Wild Is the Wind" was issued as a single to push the Changestwobowie compilation. Backed with "Word on a Wing" and accompanied by a video shot especially for the release, it made #24 in the UK and charted for ten weeks.

Another song purportedly recorded during the album sessions at Cherokee Studios, a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City", went unreleased at the time but was issued in 1990 on the Sound and Vision box set. Harry Maslin and Carlos Alomar have claimed that they never recorded the song during the Cherokee sessions, while Tony Visconti believes that the song most likely consisted of overdubs to a track originally cut at Olympic and Island Studios during the Diamond Dogs sessions, with Aynsley Dunbar on drums, Herbie Flowers on bass and Mike Garson on keyboards.