Sound And Vision single – Holland Written by: David Bowie
Recorded: September-November 1976
Producers: David Bowie, Tony Visconti

Released: fourteen January 1977

Bachelor on:
Low
All Saints

Personnel

David Bowie: record sax section, harmonica, piano
Brian Eno: piano, all synthetics
Carlos Alomar, Ricky Gardiner: guitar
George Murray: bass guitar
Roy Young: pianoforte
Dennis Davis: drums, percussion

'A New Career In A New Boondocks' was the second instrumental on Low, David Bowie's 11th studio anthology.

The championship summed upwards his sense of displacement and discovery after leaving Los Angeles, also as the spirit of artistic renewal that pervaded his European recordings.

I didn't desire to restrict myself with i procedure, so I would use straightforward narrative for perhaps two lines then go back to disorientation. "Heroes" was the most narrative, about the Wall, on that album.

On Low, 'A New Career In A New Town'.

That didn't have whatsoever words, though. (Intrigued.)

But did it give y'all the impression afterward that information technology had?

Yes, it does, doesn't information technology? That's exactly what I hateful, that the sum of all the parts produces an astonishing feeling, and that you really experience that you understood something from it.

David Bowie
Melody Maker, xviii February 1978

The title, decided past Bowie during the mixing sessions in Berlin, may have also been partly inspired by 2 Weeks In Some other Town, Vincente Minnelli'south 1962 movie starring Kirk Douglas, to which Bowie drew a comparison with 'Always Crashing In The Same Car'.

That dark everything came to a kind of a spiritual impasse, you know? And I really was down in a hotel garage, and I started going circular and round, just like a movie I'd seen. I thought, 'Oh, this is and so Kirk Douglas in that film where he lets go of the steering wheel.' [laughs] You tin can tell what kind of condition I was in. Or what condition my condition was in.

David Bowie
BBC Radio Theatre, 27 June 2000

The harmonica in 'A New Career In A New Town' was the starting time fourth dimension Bowie had recorded with the instrument since 'The Jean Genie'. His part, possibly inspired past the 1970 hit single 'Groovin' With Mr Bloe', was reprised on 'I Can't Give Everything Away' on his final album Blackstar.

'A New Career In A New Boondocks' was the b-side of the 'Sound And Vision' single, released in February 1977 in Australia, Canada, France, Italia, Portugal, South Africa, Espana, the UK, and United states. Information technology was also issued in April 1977 in Belgium, Germany, Nippon, and the Netherlands.

The track appeared on both the 1993 and 2001 versions of Bowie's instrumentals compilation All Saints.

In the studio

It was originally intended that the two instrumentals on side one of Low would have vocals, only Bowie somewhen decided against it.

Recording during week 3 and week four was at a much slower step. Melodies, lyrics and vocals were needed. 'Speed Of Life' and 'A New Career In A New Town' were originally intended to have a vocal on them, but David decided to keep them equally instrumental bookends to side one. Depression became more than radical as David sang but v songs. This after infuriated RCA record executives who tried to block the album'due south release and one suggested he should become back to Philadelphia and make Immature Americans II.

Tony Visconti, April 2017
A New Career In A New Boondocks (1977–1982) book

Although recorded in French republic, 'A New Career In A New Boondocks' was mixed in Berlin, giving weight to its sense of transition and relocation.

At Hansa Studios nosotros approached the mixes in a very sober fashion. Nosotros clocked in and went home for dinner at the aforementioned times every twenty-four hour period. The mixing wasn't that difficult because of all the recorded effects on the multi-rail tapes. In a few cases we needed to do extra piece of work, especially on 'A New Career In A New Town'. For the floaty parts, when the but percussion is the kick drum, I muted all the pulsate tracks and used but the boot drum going through an electronic 'gate' to cut out the sounds of the other drums. (Dennis Davis was playing the full kit in those passages.) I'thousand always impressed past how selective mixing can change the character of a live track.

Tony Visconti, April 2017
A New Career In A New Town (1977–1982) book

Alive performances

David Bowie performed 'A New Career In A New Town' live 42 times, during the Heathen Tour and A Reality Tour.

The vocal's live debut came on eleven June 2002, when Bowie performed Low in its entirety at the Roseland Ballroom in New York.

The final functioning was on 23 June 2004 at the T-Mobile Arena in Prague, Czech Republic. Bowie had looked frail during the previous song, 'Reality', and left the stage afterwards, leaving the band to play 'A New Career In A New Boondocks' without him. Information technology was the penultimate show of the bout.

Previous song: 'Be My Wife'