Holy Holy 45 Turns Forty

I don’t wanna be angel, Just a little bit evil, I feel a devil in me…

A mere whippersnapper compared to yesterday’s entry, (01.14.2011 NEWS: DAVID BOWIE’S FORTY FIVE YEARS OF INTROSPECTION) Holy Holy was originally released on Mercury on January 15th, 1971.

This was the last of the Bowie releases on the label and it was clear Mercury weren’t really giving the record the promotion it had given the preceding Bowie singles in terms of picture sleeves and press adverts.

Holy Holy received a positive response from the music press generally and I’m sure DB didn’t mind the comparison made in this snippet from Melody Maker. (That’s the Syd comparison by the way, not the Jim one!)

Despite some favourable reviews and a performance by Bowie of the song on UK TV in one of his men’s dresses, Holy Holy didn’t perform well on any singles chart. It would take more than another year and another label before that kind of success returned.

FOOTNOTE: This original version of Holy Holy has never had an official digital release. Bowie re-recorded a far more energetic version of the song with The Spiders later the following year that ended up as the B-side to the Diamond Dogs single release in June 1974.

The Spiders’ version has been used erroneously on both the RCA Rare album release in 1982 and the 1990 Ryko reissue of The Man Who Sold The World, where it was listed as the original Mercury version in both instances.

Eventually it ended up on EMI’s 30th Anniversary release of Ziggy Stardust as a bonus track, where it was far more fitting…Fingers crossed that we’ll get a proper digital release of the original in the not too distant future.