Recommendations of the Editorial team
“Where Are We Now?” was the name of David Bowie’s comeback single from 2013, which was published without announcement on YouTube. The fact that it would be loved so deeply, especially in this country, was revealed after 20 seconds, in the second line of the song: “Had to get the train, from Potsdamer Platz.” He sang about Berlin.
David Bowie turned his back on the music world for almost ten years. No albums. No tour. He also didn’t give any interviews. Nobody knew how he was doing – nine years after a heart attack that almost took his life. You also didn’t know how he viewed his own work, or whether he still had any desire to knit his own legend. Whether he even thought about yesterday.
Now we knew it. His return covered the period that no one suspected was his favorite: his life in West Berlin in 1977 and 1978. A peak period of the Cold War, with a divided city in the eye of the nuclear storm that the bloc powers were threatening to unleash.
Bowie and West Berlin
Bowie was the only foreign superstar living in glamor-free West Berlin in those years (his friend Iggy Pop later followed him to Schöneberg, but as the singer of the long-disbanded Stooges he was almost forgotten). Bowie eventually moved on. He had many residences. First London, of course, New York, Los Angeles, later the Bahamas and Barbados. But it was Berlin that made him feel nostalgic. The city never forgot that. Could he ever have sang about walking animatedly down the streets of LA – the metropolis that, in his cocaine madness, he was so afraid of that he hardly ever got out of his limousine?
In “Where Are We Now?” He traces the old West Berlin: “Jungel” (the discotheque), “Nürnberger Straße”, “KaDeWe”, and the “Bösebrücke”, which connected both parts of the city. Anyone who was old enough remembered a morbid, fascinating era in shades of gray thanks to this Brit’s song-formed revelry, which was represented by “Christiane F.” and Bowie’s soundtrack contributions.
Bowie’s comeback and legacy
We tell the story of David Bowie’s comeback with the single and the accompanying album “The Next Day” and his path to the black star, his last record “Blackstar”, in our cover story for ROLLING STONE issue 11/25.
Included is a world-exclusive vinyl single with the last song David Bowie recorded before his death in January 2016: “I Can’t Give Everything Away.” The B-side features an engraved motif from “Blackstar.” Order here!
The 7-inch single is released in a sturdy, elaborately designed cardboard cover and on heavy vinyl. It is only available with the German edition of ROLLING STONE and is not available in stores.