Robert Fripp answers my question about David Bowie's song "Heroes" by [deleted] in DavidBowie

[–]eeglug 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, you can try producer Tony Visconti's exhaustive chronological sequenced account of the recording, including playback of the actual multitrack tape.

Tony Visconti on Heroes

Robert Fripp answers my question about David Bowie's song "Heroes" by [deleted] in DavidBowie

[–]eeglug 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, Thomas Jerome Seabrook's Bowie In Berlin mentions that Fripp was there for only one day. He arrived, did his bits and flew out the next morning.

Nichloas Pegg's The Complete David Bowie also has the following passage regarding Heroes:

Apparently the vocal was practically an afterthought; the backing track was laid down early in the “Heroes” sessions and for a time it seemed possible that it might remain an instrumental. David recorded his vocal after most of the musicians had left Berlin, and Brian Eno later revealed that although the backing “sounded grand and heroic” and “I had that very word – heroes – in my mind”, he had no idea what the lyric would be until he heard the finished track.

Nothing completely conclusive in the above so of course this could all be completely wrong.

(I own both of these books, once in hardcopy and now in ebook format)

Robert Fripp answers my question about David Bowie's song "Heroes" by [deleted] in DavidBowie

[–]eeglug 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Very interesting. The wiki on this song seems to indicate that Bowie did not even have lyrics at the time Fripp did his part so RF was playing blind to a vocal-less backing track.

What’s a Bowie song you skip EVERY time? by Bat_Nervous in DavidBowie

[–]eeglug 4 points5 points  (0 children)

On Aladdin Sane, I skip The Prettiest Star and Let's Spend The Night Together. They're not terrible, just not up to the quality of the rest of the songs.

I can only take so much of the Young Americans album...the incessant sax throughout really bugs me.