Can't We Give Ourselves One More Chance?
Alex Smirnov & Sergey Zhuzhlin have met David
Bowie and this is what happened there
Pictures:
David Bowie in Moscow
David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, Live Aid, 13th July 1985
At Saturday 16 of June 1996 one of persons
approached to "Royal Palace" has arrived in Moscow. This person is David
Bowie, who became popular between Queen fans after writing with group a super-hit
"Under Pressure ". But if Queen have at once included a song in the program of
concerts, but Bowie had required 15 years to performe his own concert version. But,
basically, this has explanation - " Under Pressure " first of all was a Queen
song, and it was not a number, on which and group, and invited musician works for a long
time. As John said in one of the interviews to a French magazine in 1984 , the song was
written by Freddie, and David has offered the improvements in the musical plan, by
thinking out famous bass riff. Here that Freddie (the interview for BBC Radio 1, 1985)
spoke in turn: «We didn’t plan anything. He (Bowie) just happened to be in town
with friends, and he just kept popping into the studio... and we were jamming to some of
his songs and our... and we had a few bottles of wine and things and we suddenly said,
«Why don’t we try something totally new?» And out jelled this song.
I remember David half way through said, «My God I think
it’s caught fire! Let’s take it!» So suddenly it then became a worthwhile
project. Before we were just fooling around, and we said let’s grab this while
it’s happening because if we come back tomorrow we will probably go our separate ways
and not think about it; so we just carried on. It was virtually a twenty four hour
session. We just kept on at it, and finally got the crux of the song, and then when we
knew it was going to do something we still worked on it another day, and then we finished
it».
Except "Under Pressure" they had also recorded "Cool
Cat", but this version had seen the light of day only on bootlegs.
The single was released on October 21, 1981 and had huge success, by getting
on the first place in British charts, but this song, much more successful in the
commercial plan, than almost all singles of Queen, and Bowie, was never performed together
on a concert and promo with their participation nor had followed. A question about a promo
video had somewhat explained by Jim Jenkins in the comments to "Greatest Flix 2
", he had written, that in that time Bowie was busy and David Mallett - director of
some of Bowie's and Queen's clips - had created for this song a videoline. The second
question was more interesting, and so by getting on a Moscow press conference of Mr.
Bowie, our question consisted in an explanation of the reasons of default of a song on
concerts together with Queen, including on "Live Aid". Unfortunately, whether
Mr. Troitsky (Russian pressman), who persisted to ask questions in Russian, didn’t
correctly translated this question, whether David, embarrassed by dazzling flashes
and by a long speech of one well-known journalist, didn’t understand the question by
asking again the name of a song! The answer was those: "Well, firstly, if it is
the song that you quite like, you are pleased to hear that we are doing it tomorrow night.
In fact, the Freddie's part... Well, the last time I sang it with Annie Lennox at Freddie
Mercury Show, and my bass player Gail Ann Dorsey will be actually singing the song with me
tomorrow night taking Annie Lennox’s part and making it very much her own."
On June 18th the first concert of David Bowie in Moscow was held. But
the most interesting event took place in a few hours before the show, when we were
given a unique opportunity to speak with David in "Pallace Hotel" room.
During the conversation with fans, he finally answered my question: «It was such a
through-away single. They were recording in Montreux studios for two or three days and
it’s the town where I live. And so they invited me just to kinda listen. And the song
really got made by accident, we started messing around in the studio and by the end of the
evening we had a song. So I never really thought of it as a part of something that I...
You know it was one of those through-away thing. So I never performe it until that concert
and I did it as honour to Freddie. But since that on this tour I’ve been doing it
with Gail. You’ll love the way she sings the Annie Lennox part. She’s fantastic!
Gail is great!»
The concert was really brilliant. Not in an insult to Bowie's fans will be
said, but Queen in our country, and probably all over the world are a little bit more
popular, than David, and consequently performance of " Under Pressure " was
accepted more joyful, than many other songs. Probably, for somebody, who come to a
concert, this track was the only number which he recognised in his new concert program,
not abounding with known hits.
Alex Smirnov & Sergey Zhuzhlin |
