‘Time Will Crawl’: The deep cut David Bowie always wanted to re-record
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we rarely get opportunities in life for a do-over. David Bowie, on the other hand, was never bound by the conventions of normal human existence. As an artist and songwriter, Bowie never stopped looking forward, reinventing himself and exploring countless new avenues of songwriting and artistic inspiration. Rarely in Bowie’s life was there an opportunity to look back upon his illustrious career. Nevertheless, he did get the chance to rectify some regrets.
In the present day, Bowie is rightfully afforded something of a legendary reputation, as though he was incapable of doing any wrong. However, if you delve deep into the discography of the glam rock superstar, he certainly had his fair share of mis-hits, mistakes, and duds. Having created 26 studio albums over a career spanning several decades, it is something of an inevitability that Bowie’s career was not without sin.
One of the most predominant regrets in Bowie’s discography career came in 1987 with the release of Never Let Me Down. After an invincible run of records throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, ending with Let’s Dance in 1983, Bowie entered something of a difficult period. Both Tonight and its follow-up, Never Let Me Down, were incredibly disappointing records, and even Bowie himself seemed to disown the albums almost immediately following their release.
On the face of it, Never Let Me Down seemed to signal a return to rock music for Bowie, while his previous few records had been imbued with influences of new wave, disco, and even synth-pop. However, the results paled in comparison to his original rock and roll stylings, with the album feeling incredibly generic, commercial, and wholly uninteresting. It is not surprising, therefore, that the songwriter repeatedly wished to re-record the entire project.
Ultimately, Bowie never did remake Never Let Me Down – truthfully, it would take a lot more than a re-record to get the album to the same level as some of Bowie’s previous efforts. He did, however, remix the single ‘Time Will Crawl,’ one of the more promising songs from the album. “There are a host of songs that I’ve recorded over the years that, for one reason or another, I’ve often wanted to re-record some time in the future,” he once told the Mail on Sunday, “This track from Never Let Me Down is one of those.”
The remix of ‘Time Will Crawl’ appeared on Bowie’s retrospective compilation CD iSelect, given away with the Mail on Sunday in 2008. Seemingly, the song was only included on the album as it gave the songwriter a chance to rectify a handful of the mistakes made while producing Never Let Me Down.
Explaining the differences between the old mix and the new, Bowie revealed, “I’ve replaced the drum machine with true drums and added some crickety strings and remixed. I’m very fond of this new version with its Neil Young of Shortlands accents.”
“Oh, to redo the rest of that album,” Bowie concluded, seeming to confirm the idea that Never Let Me Down was a continued source of regret and disappointment for the musician. While an entire remake of Never Let Me Down might have been an interesting project, perhaps it is for the best that Bowie spent the remainder of his years crafting new and innovative projects rather than focusing on attempting to fix the mistakes of his younger self. Either way, fans still have the remixed version of ‘Time Will Crawl’ to give some sense as to what a new version of the 1987 album might sound like.
