Oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh…***
Though it didn’t particularly strike me as incongruous at the time, TVC 15 was a bit of sore thumb on Station To Station in that it seemed uncharacteristically playful given the overall mood of the album.
Apparently based on an Iggy Pop tale regarding the consumption of his girlfriend by a ravenous TV set, the song was never going to have the gravitas of The Bewlay Brothers. But it remains a cracking track nevertheless.
Released on the eve of Bowie’s 1976 London shows and performed during them, TVC 15 had the poorest UK chart performance of any of David’s RCA 45s since Changes, up to that point.
Despite getting to the chorus 20 seconds sooner via a 3:29 single edit (down from 5:28) the single only managed to reach #33 in the UK.
This must be due to some degree to the fact that TVC 15 wasn’t advertised in the music press in the UK (that’s a US advert in the montage above) in fact it’s the only UK RCA single I can think of that there was no press ad for.
It also seems that the record was pressed in smaller quantities than usual in the UK (it’s the first of the UK RCA singles for which there exists no solid centre pressing) so perhaps people wanted it but just couldn’t buy it.
In other territories RCA got their act together with various picture cover releases, a small sampling of which above.
*** I was still at school when this record came out and I was checking the lyrics in Disco 45 or Songwords magazine during lessons. However, my geography teacher, Mr Maynard, caught me in the act and decided it would be fun to share with the class.
He took the mag from me and stood at the front to say something to all assembled along these lines: “It seems Mark thought his education would be served better today by reading the words to David Bowie’s latest release, rather than bothering with geography. So I thought it would be nice if you could all hear a bit from the song TVC 15 and make up your own minds.”
Then, in the slowest, most deliberate deadpan voice, and for what seemed like a couple of hours, he read out the following selection…
“Oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh oh. Transition, Transmission, Transition, Transmission. Oh my T V C one five, oh oh, T V C one five, Oh my T V C one five, oh oh, T V C one five, Oh my T V C one five, oh oh, T V C one five, Oh my T V C one five, oh oh, T V C one five.”
Of course, the kids were in fits of laughter and I thought Bowie had been done a great injustice. Why hadn’t it been a song that worked better on paper, such as Life On Mars?
Anyway, geography was as much use to me as David Bowie lyrics were to Mr Maynard. The following year I was discussing the merits of David Bowie’s latest album, “Heroes”, with one of my young and enthusiastic new tutors at art college.