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"Subterraneans" is a song by David Bowie for his album Low (1977). Subterraneans is mostly instrumental, with brief, obscure lyrics sung near the song's end.
The final song of Low, "Subterraneans" was meant to invoke the misery of those in East Berlin during the Cold War. According to Bowie, people who "got caught in East Berlin after the separation - hence the faint jazz saxophones representing the memory of what it was."
Musical characteristics
Together with "Ian Fish, U.K. Heir" and "The Mysteries" from The Buddha of Suburbia, this song is among Bowie's most subdued and ambient. "Subterraneans" was ultimately the most heavily edited song on Low, with the reversed instrument sounds, saxophone, and multilayered synthesizers from Brian Eno which float underneath a moaned vocal that is wordless until about the final ninety seconds. The synthesiser melody is identical to a motif from Edward Elgar's "Nimrod", the 9th Enigma Variation.
The piece was rumoured to be originally intended for use in the soundtrack to the film The Man Who Fell to Earth, in which Bowie played the lead role. Though this rumour was false, the reversed track used as the bassline in this piece was actually the only remaining intact part of the film soundtrack that Bowie used on the Low album.
Lyrics
The lyrics are amongst Bowie's most inaccessible, and - superficially at least - seem to make no sense. Bowie reports that during the recording of Low he was "intolerably bored" with conventional narrative rock and roll lyrics. The lyrics of "Subterraneans" seem to resemble the "cut-up" technique popularized by William S. Burroughs, which Bowie had previously used and expressed admiration for.
According to the liner notes to the 1999 Virgin Records rerelease of Low, the lyrics are:
Share bride failing starcare-linecare-linecare-linecare-line driving meShirley, Shirley, Shirley, ownShare bride failing star
