The beautiful David Bowie song that was inspired by Kyoto, Japan
It has been 45 years since David Bowie released his groundbreaking album Heroes in 1977, a record that acted as the second instalment in his Berlin trilogy, a project which began with Low and ended with Lodger.
Recording took place in a studio just 500 yards from the Berlin Wall, and producer Tony Visconti stated: “I’d sit down at [a] desk and see three Russian Red Guards looking at us with binoculars, with their Sten guns over their shoulders […] that atmosphere was so provocative and so stimulating and so frightening that the band played with so much energy.”
Heroes features a collection of conventional rock songs and darker, ambient instrumental tunes that bleed with brooding sensuality. Compared to Low, the album’s general atmosphere is significantly more upbeat, with the opening track ‘Beauty and the Beast’ bouncing with rhythm and groove. The title track, one of Bowie’s best-known songs, also features an optimistic chord progression, although this acts as a facade for lyrics that express a doomed love affair.
However, the album frequently dips into darker sonic territory, as demonstrated by tracks such as ‘Neuköln’, an instrumental piece designed to capture the despair of Turkish immigrants. ‘Sense of Doubt’ is another instrumental moment that captures a desolate landscape’s mood, driven by a four-note piano motif that weaves in and out of moody synthesisers.
Perhaps one of the album’s most underrated tracks is the other remaining instrumental piece, ‘Moss Garden’, which Visconti called his favourite song on Heroes. Co-written by ambient master Brian Eno, ‘Moss Garden’ was inspired by a garden in Kyoto, Japan. Eno shared: “David wanted to do a piece which was very descriptive, something I don’t normally do inasmuch as I usually start something and then say ‘Oh that’s what it is’ and then follow that direction. But this was quite studied.”
He continued: “There was this very sloppy sort of technique – like, I was just playing around with this chord sequence on the Yamaha synthesiser, and I said, ‘Give us a shout when you think it’s long enough’, you know, and sort of carried on. And then David looked at the clock and said, ‘Yeah, that’ll probably do’, and we stopped. And, on the record, that’s exactly where the piece ends. I find this very, very curious. It’s so random, somehow.”
The song was created using Eno’s famous ‘Oblique Strategies’ cards, which he made with artist Peter Schmidt, which contained different instructions to inspire creativity when pulled at random. In 2006, Eno stated that he pulled a card that said: “Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency,” whereas Bowie pulled one that said: “destroy”.
Bowie also played the koto (箏) on the track, Japan’s national instrument, which helped to ground the recording in nature and humanity in contrast to the electronic synthesisers. Visconti commented on the song’s production: “With ‘Moss Garden’, Brian excelled himself with textures that imitated nature, atmospheric elements of distant thunder, wind, water and bird call, all originating from his manipulation of the Synthi. David played his Chamberlin sampler, the successor to the Mellotron.”
Listen to the track below.
