“And your prayers they break the sky in two”
Being his birthday today (Feb 26th) we thought it would be great if Gerry ‘Spooky Ghost’ Leonard (fresh from a triumphant performance with the Bowie band at the Brit Awards), chose a track for DB Deep Cut Of The Day.
Thankfully he obliged and this is what he had to say about his selection, the Reality Tour rendition of Loving The Alien…
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One of the special songs for me with David has been “Loving the Alien”
I was somewhat aware of the track, but one day I got a call from David out of the blue asking me if I wanted to play Carnegie Hall with him.
He told me he wanted to do “Loving the Alien” with just himself singing and myself on guitar and gave me the new key.
After I hung up the phone and started to listen i was suddenly terrified as the original production was very dense.
But as I charted the song and started to transpose it onto the acoustic guitar it slowly revealed itself as this beautiful and powerful song.
A simple version of the motif appealed to me and I found these great open chords. Again David’s harmonic writing was inspiring and challenging.
I came up with a basic framework and on our rehearsal I started to play my idea to illustrate it to him. He just came in singing and we did the whole song once.
“Great Gerry, we’ll do that tomorrow night” he said and walked out of the room. We played it like this for the first live time in Carnegie and ended up doing it most nights on the Reality tour.
It is a hidden gem of a song that holds a special place for me in David’s catalogue.
From the ghost of somewhere.
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Thanks Gerry and hope your birthday was special today
Listen to Loving The Alien (Live) by David Bowie on Apple Music.
Listen to Loving The Alien (Live) by David Bowie on Spotify.
FOOTNOTE: Gerry is pictured here with Gail Ann Dorsey and Bowie, backstage at The Roseland Ballroom in NY in 2002.
#DBDCOTD #BowieDeepCut