Look Back in Anger (song)

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For other uses, see Look Back in Anger (disambiguation).

"Look Back in Anger"
Look Back in Anger label.jpg
Single by David Bowie
from the album Lodger
B-side"Repetition"
Released20 August 1979 (1979-08-20) (US)
Recorded
  • September 1978
  • March 1979
Studio
Length3:08
LabelRCA
Songwriter(s)
  • David Bowie
  • Brian Eno
Producer(s)
David Bowie singles chronology
"Yassassin"
(1979) 		"Look Back in Anger"
(1979) 		"John, I'm Only Dancing (Again)"
(1979)

"Look Back in Anger" is a song written by English artists David Bowie and Brian Eno for the album Lodger (1979). It concerns "a tatty 'Angel of Death'",[1] and features a guitar solo by Carlos Alomar.

RCA Records was unsure if America was ready for the sexual androgyny of "Boys Keep Swinging",[2] the lead-off single from Lodger in most territories, and "Look Back in Anger" was issued instead.[3] The B-side was another track from Lodger called "Repetition", a story of domestic violence. The single failed to chart.

"Look Back in Anger" has a mixed reputation among Bowie commentators. NME critics Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray described it as "probably the low point" of the album,[1] while Nicholas Pegg considers it "one of Lodger's dramatic highlights"[3] and Chris O'Leary has called it "one of Bowie's strongest songs of the late Seventies".[4]

Beyond the shared title, the song has nothing to do with the John Osborne play Look Back in Anger.

Bowie performed the song on his 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour (it is the opening number on the Serious Moonlight film) and reworked it in the mid-1990s as a heavy rock song for the Outside and Earthling tours.

Track listing[]

  1. "Look Back in Anger" (David Bowie, Brian Eno) – 3:08
  2. "Repetition" (Bowie) – 2:59

Production credits[]

Music video[]

David Mallet directed a music video for the song, featuring Bowie in an artist's studio. The scenario was based on the conclusion of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, as a self-portrait of the protagonist grows more handsome while he himself physically decays.[5]

Other releases[]

  • It appeared on the following compilations:
  • A concert performance recorded on 12 September 1983 may be heard on the live album Serious Moonlight (Live '83), which was part of the 2018 box set Loving the Alien (1983-1988) and was released separately the following year. The filmed performance appears on the concert video Serious Moonlight.
  • In summer 1988 Bowie recorded a "new, brutal version of the song" with Reeves Gabrels on lead guitar, Kevin Armstrong on rhythm guitar, and Erdal Kizilcay on bass and drums; it was the first arrangement Bowie and Gabrels collaborated on, taking place shortly before the formation of the band Tin Machine.[6][7] The recording was issued as a bonus track on the Rykodisc release of Lodger in 1991.

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: p.106
  2. ^ Nicholas Pegg (2000). The Complete David Bowie: p.43
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Nicholas Pegg (2000). The Complete David Bowie: p.131
  4. ^ Chris O'Leary (2019). Ashes to Ashes: The Songs of David Bowie, 1976–2016: p.128
  5. ^ David Buckley (1999). Strange Fascination – David Bowie: The Definitive Story: p.355
  6. ^ David Buckley (1999). Strange Fascination – David Bowie: The Definitive Story: pp.449–450
  7. ^ Chris O'Leary (2019). Ashes to Ashes: The Songs of David Bowie, 1976–2016: pp.126, 128, 278–279
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