| "Boys Keep Swinging" | ||||||||||
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| Single by David Bowie | ||||||||||
| from the album Lodger | ||||||||||
| B-side | Fantastic Voyage | |||||||||
| Released | 27 April 1979 | |||||||||
| Format | 7" single | |||||||||
| Recorded | Mountain Studios, Montreux; September 1978; Record Plant Studios, New York, March 1979 | |||||||||
| Genre | Rock | |||||||||
| Length | 3:17 | |||||||||
| Label | RCA BOW 2 |
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| Writer(s) | David Bowie, Brian Eno | |||||||||
| Producer | David Bowie, Tony Visconti | |||||||||
| David Bowie singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Boys Keep Swinging" was a single by David Bowie. It previewed his album Lodger in the UK, being released on 27 April 1979.
During the Lodger sessions Bowie had wanted to capture a garage band style for the track, and decided the best way to achieve this sound was to get the band to swap instruments. Guitarist Carlos Alomar played drums and drummer Dennis Davis played bass. The final result had a post punk feel. Bowie later described the intention to suggest "young kids in the basement just discovering their instruments".
"Boys Keep Swinging" has exactly the same chord sequence as "Fantastic Voyage", from the same album - Fantastic Voyage was the B-side to the single release of Boys Keep Swinging. The lyrics of Boys Keep Swinging satirise machismo, something reinforced by the butch voice adopted by Bowie for the song, and several lines that recall the gender-bending of Bowie's glam era, such as:
"When you're a boy, other boys check you out"
When this was combined with David Mallet's video, which featured a suited Bowie backed by three backing vocalists who were revealed to be the singer in drag, RCA decided against releasing the single in the US, choosing "Look Back in Anger". Bowie would perform the track on Saturday Night Live in April 1979, joined by Klaus Nomi as backing singer, (during which NBC censors muted the "other boys check you out" line).
The song reached #7 in the UK, returning Bowie to the top 10 of the Singles chart for the first time since "Sound and Vision" in February 1977. It has only been performed on one Bowie tour to date, the 1995 Outside Tour.
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Blur's 1997 track "M.O.R." heavily borrowed the rhythm of the song, too, and after legal intervention, was credited to "Blur/Bowie/Eno".
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