Boys Keep Swinging

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"Boys Keep Swinging”
Single by David Bowie
From the album Lodger
B-side ”Fantastic Voyage”
Released 27 April 1979
Format 7" single
Recorded Mountain Studios, Montreux; September 1978; Record Plant Studios, New York, March 1979
Genre Rock
Length 3:17
Label RCA
BOW 2
Producers David Bowie, Tony Visconti
Chart positions #7 (UK)
David Bowie singles chronology
"Breaking Glass"
1978		 "Boys Keep Swinging”
1979		 "DJ"
1979

”Boys Keep Swinging” was a single by David Bowie. It previewed his album Lodger in the UK, being released on 27 April 1979.

During the Lodger sessions Bowie had wanted to capture a garage band style for the track, and decided the best way to achieve this sound was to get the band to swap instruments. Guitarist Carlos Alomar played drums and drummer Dennis Davis played bass. The final result had a post punk feel. Bowie later described the intention to suggest “young kids in the basement just discovering their instruments”.

The lyrics satirise machismo, something reinforced by the butch voice adopted by Bowie for the song, and several lines that recall the gender-bending of Bowie’s glam era, such as:

“When you’re a boy, other boys check you out”

When this was combined with David Mallet’s video, which featured a suited Bowie backed by three backing vocalists who were revealed to be the singer in drag, RCA decided against releasing the single in the US, choosing “Look Back in Anger” instead, though Bowie would perform the track on Saturday Night Live in April 1979 (during which NBC censors muted the "other boys check you out" line). In Turkey, largely due to an attempt to cash in on the use of a Turkish-language title, “Yassassin” was issued as the first single from Lodger.

The song reached #7 in the UK, returning Bowie to the top 10 of the Singles chart for the first time since “Sound and Vision” in February 1977. It has only been performed on one Bowie tour to date, the 1995 Outside Tour.

Contents

[edit] Track listing

  1. "Boys Keep Swinging" (Bowie, Eno) – 3:17
  2. "Fantastic Voyage” (Bowie) – 2:55

[edit] Production credits

[edit] Other releases

[edit] Cover versions

  • AFX - Ashes to Ashes: A Tribute to David Bowie (1998)
  • The Associates - It was released as a single in 1979 without copyright permission as a publicity stunt (it worked, the band landing a record deal soon afterwards).
  • The Dambuilders - Crash Course for the Ravers - A Tribute to the Songs of David Bowie (1996)
  • 88's
  • The Gay Sportscasters - Only Bowie (1995)
  • The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower - INRI (2006)
  • Susanna Hoffs - When You're a Boy (1991) and David Bowie Songbook
  • Screamfeeder - Home Age (1999)
  • Shihad - Single.

Blur’s 1997 track “M.O.R.” heavily borrowed the rhythm of the song, too, and after legal intervention, was credited to “Blur/Bowie/Eno”.

[edit] References

  • Pegg, Nicholas, The Complete David Bowie, Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, 2000, ISBN 1-903111-14-5
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