Saturday 23 April 2016

T - TVC-15

Up every evening 'bout half eight or nine
I give my complete attention to a very good friend of mine
He's quadraphonic, he's a, he's got more channels
So hologramic, oh my T V C one five

The odd-sounding but straightforward "TVC-15" was recorded in the fall of 1975 at Cherokee Studios and Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles California, for Bowie's tenth album Station to Station.  It was released as a single in April 1976 with the B-side "We Are the Dead".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4llc_PWmv1I

According to Bowie, the song was inspired by the hallucinations of his strung-out friend Iggy Pop, in which a television was swallowing his girlfriend.  The song's narrator sings of his girlfriend who crawls into a television set, and afterwards he wishes to crawl in himself in order to find her.  The song also seems to warn about the hypnotic and detrimental effect of watching too much television.

"TVC-15" wasn't quite as popular as most of Bowie's other singles from the same period.  It reached number 33 on the UK Singles Chart and in North America it peaked at number 64 on the Billboard Singles chart.  However he performed it regularly during his live concerts and it has appeared on several compilations.

1 comment:

  1. I haven't heard much of Bowie's music, but the motivation behind songs is always fascinating to hear!

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