It's No Game

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"It's No Game"
"It's No Game" cover
Song by David Bowie
from the album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Released September 12, 1980
Recorded The Power Station, New York; Good Earth Studios, London February-April 1980
Genre Rock, New Wave, Post-punk
Length 4:15 (No. 1)
4:22 (No. 2)
Label RCA Records
Writer(s) David Bowie
Producer(s) David Bowie, Tony Visconti
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) track listing
"It's No Game"
(1)		 Up the Hill Backwards
(2)

"It's No Game" is a song written by David Bowie for the 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), featuring lead guitar played by Robert Fripp. The song is in two parts, opening and closing the album. "It's No Game (No. 1)" employs lyrics sung in Japanese by Michi Hirota, with Bowie screaming the English translation "as if he's literally tearing out his intestines".[1] In contrast, No. 2 is much calmer; NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray interpreted this as meaning that by the album's close, Bowie is "facing the same situation which he confronted when the album began, but with the force of his rage somewhat spent. Things haven't improved, but he's taking it better."[1]

The song contains lyrics and a vocal melody borrowed from an early unreleased Bowie song called "Tired of My Life", demoed in 1970 but said to have been written when he was 16.[2] It was considered the "most obvious target" of the Hee Bee Gee Bees' Bowie parody "Quite Ahead of My Time" (1981), which featured a voice calling out the names of Japanese cars.[2]

[edit] Other releases

  • "It's No Game (No. 1)" was released as the B-side of the US version of the single "Ashes to Ashes" in August 1980.
  • The Japan release of the single "Fashion" featured "It's No Game (No. 2)" as the B-side.

[edit] Cover versions

  • Born to Worry - A version called "It's No Game Part 3" on the album Loving the Alien: Athens Georgia Salutes David Bowie.
  • Nine Inch Nails - Guitar samples from the Bowie song, slowed and in reverse, on "Pinion" from the album Broken;[2] the sample is more clearly heard in the intro tape played prior to most Nine Inch Nails concerts.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: pp.112-113
  2. ^ a b c Nicholas Pegg (2000). The Complete David Bowie: pp.108-109
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