The LCD Soundsystem song about David Bowie
Toward the end of the 2000s, James Murphy was living the dream. After over a full decade of trying to break through in music by playing punk, house, and dance music, Murphy channelled all of his anxieties into a genuine breakthrough: ‘Losing My Edge’. He needed a band to cover up the fact that it was mostly just him by himself, and thus LCD Soundsystem was born.
By 2010, LCD Soundsystem were one of the final bands to emerge from the New York indie rock boom and still remain on top. After the release of the band’s third LP, This Is Happening, Murphy decided to close up shop and turn his attention elsewhere. During that time, Murphy managed to meet one of his heroes, David Bowie.
Bowie eventually convinced Murphy to help him record what would end up being Bowie’s final album, Blackstar. Murphy was initially hesitant. ”It takes a different kind of person than me to walk into that room and be like, ‘I know exactly… I belong here. I should definitely insert myself in this relationship because they just can’t manage to make a record without me,'” Murphy claimed.
However, with Bowie’s encouragement, Murphy relented, contributing percussion to the songs’ Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)’ and ‘Girl Loves Me’. During the recording, Murphy began to write music again and was wavering back and forth on whether it should be LCD Soundsystem or not.
“When I was working on Blackstar, I was talking to David Bowie, which is a luxurious thing to say,” Murphy told Crack Magazine. “I said to him, ‘I’m really freaked out as I’ve started writing music; what am I going to do? What if I come back after we quit so perfectly?'”
“David said to me, ‘Does it make you feel uncomfortable to come back?’ I said, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘Good, you should be uncomfortable to do something. You need to be uncomfortable,'” Murphy recalled. “It was a funny thing to hear from him because I always assumed he was comfortable all the time.”
Bowie died before work on the fourth LCD Soundsystem LP, American Dream, was finished. As a tribute, Murphy wrote the song ‘Black Screen’. By unlucky happenstance, Bowie wouldn’t be the only legendary musician to be associated with the song.
“When I worked on the last song of the record, I said I wanted a spoken word bit done at the end”, Murphy also told Crack Magazine. “I said it would be amazing to have Lou Reed on the end of that song, but he’d died.”
He concluded: “But then I said, ‘I feel like I could talk to Leonard Cohen, let’s call Leonard Cohen, and maybe he’ll do it’, and then he died like three days later, and I’m like… ‘fuck off’. I’m not going to ask anybody else because they’re just going to die.”
Revisit the song below.
