Breaking Glass

"Breaking Glass"
Single by David Bowie
from the album Stage
B-side	Art Decade Ziggy Stardust
Released	November 1978
Format	7" single
Recorded	Either Philadelphia 28/29 April; Providence 5 May or Boston 6 May 1978
Genre	Rock/Electronic
Length	3:28
Label	RCA BOW 1
Producer	Tony Visconti
David Bowie singles chronology
"Beauty and the Beast" 1978 "Breaking Glass" 1978 "Boys Keep Swinging" 1979
Low track listing "Speed of Life" (1) "Breaking Glass" (2) "What in the World" (3)

"Breaking Glass" was a song and live single written by David Bowie and co-written by bassist George Murray and drummer Dennis Davis. Originally a track on the 1977 album Low; a reworked version was a regular on the singer's 1978 tour and was released to promote Bowie's second live album, Stage.

"Breaking Glass" was reworked and extended for Bowie's 1978 tour, though without additional lyrics, the chorus is brought to reprise multiple times, with a long, mellow drum break. Despite being more accessible than its studio version, the stage version of "Breaking Glass" was an unusual choice for a single, and only reached #54 in the UK charts. In America, "Star" was chosen as the lead track for the live single (with "What in the World" and "Breaking Glass" as B-sides), but failed to chart, while in Japan "Blackout" was released to promote Stage.

"Breaking Glass" has appeared on Bowie's 1978, 1983, 1995-1996, 2002 and 2003-2004 tours.

Lyrics

The original song was uncompromising even by Low's standards. The fractured lyric is, like several songs written during Bowie's stay in Berlin, introspective of his dark, drug-filled period living in America in 1975-1976. Its lyrics, when written out, look potentially more like a paragraph than a song, and when separated into phrases, the song has a disjointed feeling. The song is also curiously short, not spanning two minutes and only going through one verse.

The lines "Don't look at the carpet; I drew something awful on it" refer to Bowie's practice of drawing the Tree of Life on the floor during that period, as he was interested in Aleister Crowley and Qabbala at the time.

Track listing

1. "Breaking Glass" (Bowie, Davis, Murray) – 3:28
2. "Art Decade" (Bowie) – 3:10
3. "Ziggy Stardust" (Bowie) – 3:32

Production credits

• Producers:
  • Tony Visconti

• Musicians:
  • David Bowie: Vocals
  • Adrian Belew: Guitar
  • Carlos Alomar: Guitar
  • George Murray: Bass
  • Dennis Davis: Drums
  • Sean Mayes: Piano
  • Roger Powell: Keyboards

Live versions

• A live version recorded on the Heroes tour at the Philadelphia Spectrum, April 28-29th, 1978, was released on the live album Stage and on the above mentioned single. This live version was also released as the B-side of the single "Star" in 1978.

Other releases

• It appeared on the following compilations:
  • Chameleon (Holland 1979)
  • Best of Bowie (1980)
  • Sound and Vision box set (1989)
  • The Best of 1974/1979 (1998)
• It was released as a picture disc in the RCA Life Time picture disc set.

References

Pegg, Nicholas, The Complete David Bowie, Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, 2000, ISBN 1-903111-14-5