Quicksand (David Bowie song)

"Quicksand" is a song written by David Bowie in 1971 for the album Hunky Dory.

This ballad features multi-tracked acoustic guitars and a string arrangement by Mick Ronson. Producer Ken Scott, having recently engineered George Harrison's album All Things Must Pass, attempted to create a similarly powerful acoustic sound with this track.^[1]

Lyrically this song, like much of Bowie's work at this time, was influenced by Buddhism, occultism, and Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of the Overman. It refers to the magical society Golden Dawn and name-checks one of its most famous members, Aleister Crowley, as well as Heinrich Himmler, Winston Churchill and Greta Garbo.

[edit] Other releases

It was released as the B-side of the single "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" in April 1974.
RCA included the song in the picture disc set Life Time.
A demo version of the song was released as a bonus track on the Rykodisc release of Hunky Dory in 1990.

Dinosaur Jr. – single (1991) (Dinosaur Jr.'s version makes several changes to the lyrics)
Seu Jorge – a Portuguese version for the film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Les Zazous – single
Seal – live recording (MTV)
Robert Smith – live recording (with Bowie) (1997)
End of Fashion - part of Australian radio station Triple J's Like a Version series (2005)

^ David Buckley (1999). Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story: p.115

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Related articles
Tony Visconti \| Brian Eno \| Mick Ronson \| Iggy Pop \| Mike Garson \| Reeves Gabrels