The song David Bowie recorded as a simple “souvenir”
From Hunky Dory to Heroes, David Bowie released a number of classic albums that continue to go down in history as having been some of the greatest of all time; albums that changed the course of musical history and reinvented what ought to be considered the blueprint for immense creativity. These records are discussed endlessly, and for good reason, but at the same time, some efforts from the shapeshifting rockstar often get swept under the rug.
Normally only discussed by superfans, there are a number of releases and oddities within Bowie’s catalogue that, for some reason, aren’t quite as revered or even known about by the general public. Bowie may have been known for having made a few small forays into acting, with roles in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell To Earth and the Jim Henson-George Lucas fantasy Labyrinth being among his most well-known appearances on screen. However, less discussed is his role in Baal, a BBC adaptation of the Bertolt Brecht play of the same name for which he also created the soundtrack.
Telling the story of a young man who becomes embroiled in a series of sexual and murderous scandals, Baal is one of Brecht’s earliest works, written in 1918 and debuted on stage in 1923. The BBC adaptation of the play wasn’t the first of its kind, with German television having first produced a version of the work in 1970, but the version that Alan Clarke directed in 1982 saw Bowie recruited as not only the titular character but also contribute to the music for the television play alongside composer Dominic Muldowney.
The five songs that Bowie worked on were eventually assembled onto an EP, with the opening track ‘Baal’s Hymn’ being a translation of the Brecht original, ‘Der Choral Vom Großen Baal’. While the songs that featured in the broadcast were performed with just a banjo accompaniment, they were rearranged for the EP release with a more full interpretation, and this opening track sees Bowie recite the prologue to the play in a typically theatrical fashion. With the musicians having recorded separately from Bowie, technical issues forbid this from being possible, and his contributions were overdubbed in a short window of time.
However, despite his involvement in the project, Bowie didn’t foresee the adaptation being a successful, and he was allegedly reluctant to make the accompanying record alongside producer Tony Visconti in what would be his final recording in Berlin at Hansa Studios. Several years later, Visconti revealed Bowie’s indifference towards the project, outlined in the Nicholas Pegg biography The Complete David Bowie.
“[Bowie] wanted to record this as a souvenir,” said Visconti. “David said it wasn’t going to be any big deal and probably wouldn’t sell, but he felt it should be recorded for posterity.” He wasn’t exactly wrong either, and reception to the release was mixed, with critics questioning exactly why he had agreed to have his name associated with the project considering how far-removed it was from the music he had been making in his solo output at the time. Chart performance of the EP was also middling, only reaching the lukewarm heights of 29 on the UK Singles Chart.
While it doesn’t live up to the brilliance of Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), which had come out only two years prior, it was still a fascinating little side-step in what would ultimately be Bowie’s worst decade and one that was seemingly bereft of all the creativity and quality that had come before.
