How would you rate "Outside" (1995) by David Bowie?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Haristar, Jun 29, 2017.

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  1. oldturkey

    oldturkey Forum Resident

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  2. oldturkey

    oldturkey Forum Resident

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    Maybe Bowie had remembered this from the Arrows Show 1976. He was such a magpie.

     
  3. oldturkey

    oldturkey Forum Resident

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    This Outside thread has descended into some sort of hideous farce. It would be nice to have company - we could have great conversations.
    The brains talk but the will to live is dead. All our friends now seem so thin and frail.
    Cold tired fingers, tapping out your memories.
    It's all deranged - a reject from the World Wide Internet.

    Call it a day.
    Today. This chaos is killing me. I want to be free.
    No return.
    There's no more of me exploding you.
     
  4. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

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    we could have great conversations, watching the young advance in all electric



    1 hour 11 minute version.

    David Bowie - The Leon Suites 1994
    (1. Outside Outtakes)

    Suite 1: I Am With Name
    Suite 2: Leon Takes Us Outside
    Suite 3: Enemy Is Fragile

    I do not know who put together the above video, but it seems odd to me that the *Leon album* would start with Outside at #2.
    Starting the album with it makes much more sense. Supposedly these are the finished tracks ready for release that Bowie took to the record companies intending it to be his next album.

    The internet has several video versions where fans have rearranged the tracks and even shortened them. Does anyone know what the *Official* running order is?
     
    e.s. likes this.
  5. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

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    (for anyone who missed it)

    Leon - 1. Outside outtakes

    On March 12 1994, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Reeves Gabrels, Mike Garson, Erdal Kizilcay and Sterling Cambell improvised a three-and-a-half-hour opus at the Mountain Studios in Montreux. This work formed the basis for the album 1. Outside. As Bowie put it: "One of the days we worked, we had a blindingly orgiastic session where it just didn't stop. Almost the entire genesis for this album is contained in those three-and-a-half hours, but it's nearly all dialogue and narrative description and wandering off into characters. I play out a character for maybe five minutes at a time. I mean, I developed an entire interior life of him whilst I was on the mic".

    The recordings were mixed at Westside Studios, London in the summer of 1994 and were intended for release as a double-album. Reeves Gabrels wrote on his website: "We hoped that it would have come out intact and un-compromised by financial/commercial pressures. It would have been a very serious musical statement (and maybe even pissed more people off than Tin Machine)". However, Bowie was unable to interest any record label to release 1. Outside in its original form because it was considered too uncommercial.

    Somehow 70 minutes from these mixed recordings have escaped. The CD features tracks that can hardly be called songs, as they do not follow conventional arrangements with verses and choruses. They are more like sketches, often with changes in tempo and structure within a single track. Included below is a run-down of the songs, which, because of their nature, have not been assigned titles unless these are known from other sources. Although only a few tracks ('I Am With Name' and 'Leon Takes Us Outside') ended up on 1. Outside, the story line set out throughout these tracks forms the backbone of the album.


    I Am With Name/Unknown (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): the CD opens with a familiar song, 'I Am With Name', but instead of the 1. Outside's four minutes, this version lasts well over 10 minutes. At 4'00" into the track, Bowie launches into a rap which repeats phrases such as "I won't keep it/It will hide me/He should take them/I won't tell it/She can't take it/He won't do this/He said tell it/She said spot this/He should do this/He should be there" and "It will kill that/He should hide me/I won't hide me/She can't be there/I won't tell it/They won't eat me." At 6'10" Nathan Adler is introduced in a segue which is nearly identical to the first segue from 1. Outside: "Old Touchschriek was the main name-server/Suspected of being a shoulder server or faint a hack/This old guy didn't know from **** about challenge response systems/He was way back in the age of cellular clones/We knew that Ramona A Stone was selling interest drugs, magic cookies [...] But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself/Let me take you back to when it all began." Next is the 'Ramona A Stone' segue that opens the song on 1. Outside, but again with slightly different lyrics. The segue and the song ends with the spoken "We'll creep together, you and I. We know who the small friends are. My, this is a crazy world. At this time, you could think of me as a 'syllannibal'. Someone who eats their own words".

    Unknown (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): the second track, which lasts five minutes, starts as a ballad: "We creep together/We'll creep together, you and I/Just a trick of the two/From the slump male/A mumble slough unreal/How many drew the mark?/We'll creep together, you and I/Way back in the Laugh Hotel/I'll reel out the window/You die for diamonds/But you won't live for love." The song then changes tempo: "I am a rose/I am a face/I am a chrome/I am Ramona A Stone/We'll end in chrome/This is the chrome/This is the chrome, my friend, the chrome".

    Unknown (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): the next outtake (6'45") starts off with a segue that possibly should be contributed to Leon Blank: "Then there was nothing left to do but to bring on the Nut Soldiers/Round out the packet sniffers". It features an introduction to The Leek Soldiers, after which the song continues with a repeated "Twist, fly, boy." At 2'35", Nathan Adler reappears with another excerpt from the first segue which is similar to 1. Outside: "Leon was up on that oh-so-heavenly party stage with a criss-cross machete/He could not wait for 12 o'clock midnight/He slashes around, cuts a zero in everything/I mean a zero in the fabric of time itself." This is followed by a short version of the rap as in the first track and the statement "Some day, the internet may become an information super-highway/Don't make me laugh!/A 19th century railroad that passes through the badlands of the Old West [...] Someday, the internet may become an information super-highway/Do not make me laugh!" At 5'50", the track ends with an excerpt from the 'Algeria Touchshriek' segue.

    Leon Takes Us Outside/Unknown (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): another familiar song, 'Leon Takes Us Outside', opens the fourth track (6'50"). At 2'00" into this track, Bowie starts exclaiming "Choir!" and after another change in tempo at 2'40" he sings "First time, that I felt your grace/A tear ran down my cheek/The first time that I saw the boil/Put it on the neck." Next enters Nathan Adler with another segue and the song closes with Bowie singing "Moving through the crowd/In Oxford Town/Moving on the sidewalks/Faces to the ground/Oxford Town".

    Unknown (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): this tracks (lasting 5'30") starts off with another Nathan Adler segue: "Someone once said that beauty is only deep-skin/While it has always been a stone in my flesh [...] You're better off without it/I mean, who eats the hard skin now, huh?/It ain't Ramona A Stone, that's for sure". This is followed by the detective singing "All the baby's left at home/And the sky is made of chrome/A breath-filled sky and it's made of chrome/There was a night of an OK riot [...] OK riot, with waving air [...] Yeah, I'd rather be chrome."

    We'll Creep Together/Unknown (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): 'We'll Creep Together' is also familiar, albeit from the 1. Outside EPK only. However, here the song has two extra verses: "We'll find the small things, you and I/We'll just have small friends, you and I/We'll be small together/We'll be small together/We'll be small together, you and I/We'll end together, you and I/We'll end together, you and I/We'll end together/We'll end together/We'll end together, you and I". The synth line and drums of 'We'll Creep Together' continue into another Nathan Adler segue, which ends with the familiar "But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself". While the track proceeds as an instrumental, Bowie adds a line familiar from 'The Hearts Filthy Lesson': "Oh Ramona, can you hear me/Oh Ramona."

    Unknown (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): the seventh track (5'15") consists entirely of spoken segues: "What are you in terror of?/Life needn't step on baby fingers/The minutes fall and the demons find their ways unencumbered/Half dead, poisoned by their own fatal art". Next is Nathan Adler and following him is Baby Grace Blue: "I think we're stuck in a web/A sort of nerve net/As it were, a sort of nerve-internet, as it were/We might be here for quite a long time, here, in this web or... internet, as it were/Gotta get away, gotta get away".

    Nothing To Be Desired/Unknown (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): 'Nothing To Be Desired', which was released as a B-side only, forms the basis of the next track (5'50"). The lyrics include "The editors have done an excellent job/The selections are generous, the notations are scrupulously thoroughly/To believe that the quality of a CD-ROM can be conveyed through translation may seem presumptuous, but I believe the enterprise is greatly successful [...] The editorial apparatus of the CD-ROM leaves nothing to be desired." At 2'30" the song changes tempo: "In far-off California, there is no natural plan/Its mighty branching and its preponderant bowls weigh heavy on a sun-tag morning" and at 3'00" the track develops into a long version of the familiar 'Baby Grace Blue' segue: "And then I recognized the small friends, because one of them was a very infamous and he was a grand visionary, he was the grand visionary, he was who was on a television".

    The Enemy Is Fragile (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): track eight (4'10") starts off with "Hallo Leon, would you like something really fishy?". On the Stamford Hill site, Reeves Gabrels identified this track as 'The Enemy Is Fragile'. "The enemy is always there/You could have been fighting to the death, but no!/Well, wrap up, and you'll go dancing, Leon!/Dance fishy?/Something in her mouth/There's something in her mouth/Something mysterious".

    Unknown (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): next is a 2'23" piano ballad. The atmosphere of this track is quite similar to 'The Motel'.

    Unknown (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): the penultimate track on the CD is a long version of the 'Algeria Touchshriek' segue, lasting five minutes: "Possibly, just maybe, after a nice cup of tea/Some trip of the time/We'll creep together down the memory lane/And then we'll be blind and full of bubbly ambition/Instead of the slump males that we are/Looking through windows for demons/Watching the young advance in all electric".

    Unknown (Bowie/Eno/Gabrels/Garson/Kizilcay/Campbell): the final track, rather clumsily mixed in when the Touchshriek track fades out, is a totally different, up-tempo song: "Leon, lift up your eyes/The very stars are calling/Your name is Leon/Leon is your name/Murder!".




    from web site link:
    David Bowie - Illustrated db Discography > 1. Outside outtakes
     
  6. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

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    Still my favorite of the Leon set

     
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  7. NightGoatToCairo

    NightGoatToCairo Forum Resident

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    Crikey!
     
    oldturkey likes this.
  8. NightGoatToCairo

    NightGoatToCairo Forum Resident

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    Maybe the 3 x 25 minute segments would have made up one and a half sides of a proposed vinyl release? Who knows what else we may be missing. Anyone's guess. I prefer listening to the 3 suites one after another and as they are listed above. Leon Takes Us Outside only felt out of place for short time; now I'm more than used to it being where it is.
     
  9. strummer101

    strummer101 The insane on occasion aren't without their charms

    Location:
    Lakewood OH
    You may not have understood my sentiment.
    How about...her version is weak compared to Bowie's original.

    I didn't know her middle name was frackin'. :p
     
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  10. oldturkey

    oldturkey Forum Resident

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  11. NightGoatToCairo

    NightGoatToCairo Forum Resident

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    Blimey!
     
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  12. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

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    Bretagne
    Interesting. That's about all I'd say about it and a lot of Outside. You know it's very easy for top musicians to do "weird", to just wing it, work on dissonance and abstraction, then wait for people to shout genius!
     
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  13. oldturkey

    oldturkey Forum Resident

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    Is there an emoji for "Facepalm"? Oh yeah:

    :doh::doh::doh::doh::doh::shake::unhunh::thumbsdow:cussing::wantsome::realmad::thumbsdow:thumbsdow:thumbsdow:tsk::cop:
     
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  14. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

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    Backatcha!!
    :rolleyes::buttkick::nyah::wantsome::shtiphat:
     
    oldturkey likes this.
  15. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

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    I tried that only once. Now I always listen to it in the order of 2, 1 & 3.
     
  16. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

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    David seemed to have a thing going with Gail. There are a minimum of 6 videos of them live where they are kissing on stage.
    Maybe their lips were getting dry from all that singing.
     
  17. redsmith7887

    redsmith7887 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    I thought about this and I think I'd avoid a five star system as the album has too many colors to merely rely on such a limited system. While I do generally favor the 1 to 10 ranking I think, in this particular case, the 0.0 through 10.00 is required as the tenths of a point it provides allows one to be the most exact with their review.
     
  18. NightGoatToCairo

    NightGoatToCairo Forum Resident

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    :yawn:
     
  19. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

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    Deciphering the enigma that is Nathan Adler’s Diaries
    In bite sized bits
    (much thanks to The Night Goat To Cairo)


    (Leon Blank)

    Mid-winter, Valentines Day, 25th June, 16th, Wednesday, July 6th, 20, 0, 1

    Mid-winter, June 6th, Wednesday, August 18th, 9th, 1999, 12, Michaelmas, August, Wednesday, 13th,

    October 13th, Martin Luther King Day, afternoon, in view of nothing, 20, 0, 1,

    Late winter, Martin Luther King Day, 12, 16

    August, Wednesday, 13th, Friday, 7, June.

    19 January, Mid-winter


    Wire, Fire


    The first time that I felt your grace

    A tear ran down my cheek

    The first time that I saw the boil

    Put it on the neck
     
  20. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

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    Newport Beach
    (Nathan Adler)

    I never see English anymore,

    Last time I saw him he was standing

    By a pile by cantaloupes under the lamp light

    I look up at the blood red sky

    And I saw the words ‘Ramona A. Stone’

    As sure as you can see the nose on my face

    Or the graze on my arm

    Or the boil on my neck

    Or the foot on my ankle

    Or the car on my garage

    Or the wife on my kitchen

    Or a cloud in the sky

    Or a cow in a field

    Or the sun and the moon

    Holy sun!

    We go through the crowd,

    In oxford town

    Moving on the sidewalk,

    Faces to the ground



    Oxford town, Oxford town



    Oooo.. Ba, ba



    Yeah, you got a breath-filled crowd here tonight, Eli.
     
  21. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

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    (Nathan Adler)

    Someone once said;

    That beauty is only deep skin

    Why, its always been a stone in my flesh

    I’ll tell you that for nothing

    You’re better off without it

    I mean who eats the hard skin now?

    It ain’t Ramona A Stone that’s for sure

    That don’t wanna bitch is hanging around

    Cannibals producing shots of white babies

    Fastened to the arms of blind heifers (?)
     
  22. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

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    (Nathan Adler)

    Humph, As far as I was concerned,

    There was always the slime end

    Of the silicone chip-biz

    It seems that Ramona and Leon had just

    Spiralled down into the cesspool.

    Like I always say,

    Person who loses a name, feels anxiety descending

    But hey, if I heard it right,

    She was always behaving like some ‘don’t wanna bitch’

    She was a well-blind woman,

    He was a well-intentioned man

    This makes for a bad end

    As I always said, it would end in chrome.

    But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself



    O Ramona, can you hear me?
     
  23. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

    Location:
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    (Ramona A. Stone)

    I am with name

    I am Ramona A. Stone

    A night fear female

    Good timing drone

    I am Ramona A. Stone

    And she should say:

    Twitch and stream, It'll end in chrome

    The night of the female good time drone


    And she should say:


    A person who loses a name

    Feels anxiety descending

    Left at the crossroads between the centuries

    A millennium fetish
     
  24. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

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    (Nathan Adler)

    Old Touchschriek was the main nameserver

    Suspected of being a shoulder surfer, or finger hacker

    This old guy didn't know from **** about ‘challenge response systems’

    He was waay back in the age of cellular clones

    We knew that Ramona A Stone was selling interest drugs, magic cookies

    She got males all hung up on her mind filters

    She was a rowder(?) and a swapper,

    She was, if you don't mind me saying so, a ****in update demon

    But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself

    Let me take you back to when it all began...
     
  25. California Couple

    California Couple dislike us on facebook

    Location:
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    (Ramona A. Stone)

    I was Ramona A. Stone

    I started with no enemies of my own

    I was an artiste - in a tunnel

    But I've been having a midi-life crisis

    And I've been dreaming of sleep and ape men with metal parts

    I've spat upon deeply felt age

    Hmmm... come to life dear(?) The goddess

    I’ve hid my hearts in under a freckham(?) sky

    I’ve hit the funny coloured English (scream)

    Ohhh...

    We’ll creep together you and I

    We know who our small friend are

    My this is, a crazy world

    At this time, you could think of me as a 'syllannibal(?)

    Someone who eats their own words
     
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