Warszawa (6:14)

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“Warszawa” is a mostly instrumental song by David Bowie, co-written with Brian Eno and originally released in 1977 on the album Low.

The arrangement is meant to evoke the desolation of Warsaw at the time of Bowie’s visit in 1973. The mysterious lyrics and the piece of melody in the middle part of the song are based upon a recording of a Polish folk choir “Śląsk”. Probably this theme based on the melody and words of the old Polish Silesian song “Helokanie”, recorded in advance by choir “Śląsk”. However, there is no information about this, and it remains more or less unanswered.

The piece was developed using many of Eno’s spontaneous and deeply experimental techniques, with Bowie choosing the creation of a texture over creating a piece that fit in context with his other songs. Resorting to Eno’s techniques of “planned accidents,” first a click track of 430 clicks was created by hand. From these clicks, a few were selected at random and catalogued. Eno and Bowie would each wait for their randomly selected clicks to sound, which would cue them to play a chord. When the clicks were removed, the song’s basic skeleton of chord changes remained, and the gaps were filled by their writing, with Eno on instrumentals and Bowie on vocals.

All vocals were composed and performed entirely by Bowie, despite the presence of 110 voices. Eno remarked that despite his tendency to work slowly as his own synthesizer technician, Bowie managed to complete his portion of the track rather quickly, recording all his voices in 20 minutes.

Tagged as:

ambient, instrumental, david bowie, rock, 70s
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TheVent wrote:
Thursday afternoon

David Bowie plus the name of a polish town..... I´m in love.... (though it´s a rather dark song)

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Stinkfists wrote:
last week

Incredible!

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medullasong wrote:
last week

>>>>amizing<<<<<

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trucizna0 wrote:
last week

Miło że ktoś taki jak Bowie zainteresował się Polską :))Rzadko takie coś się zdarza.

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Asynastra wrote:
last week

sądzę że David odwiedzał jakiś polski kościół... slychać wzorowanie się na pieśniach kościelnych, i "Maryjo", a że języka polskiego nie mógł poznac głębiej... wymyślił własny język

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Asynastra wrote:
13 days ago

piękna...

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FootToFace wrote:
15 days ago

yeah this is the song of all times

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Profilus wrote:
last month

I thought I pretty much knew what David Bowie was about. Then I heard THIS. Alright, it's at least 50% Brian Eno (with inspiration coming from Tony Visconti's then four-year-old son), but the vocals are pulled from a parallel universe. There isn't much out there that touches it.

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Lipton454 wrote:
last month

So fragile and tense! Brilliant!!

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T0m_Me wrote:
last month

do i hear a flute?

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Gaand wrote:
last month

To jest niesamowite. Świetnie że wykorzystał Helokanie... Geniusz.

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bat_aztec wrote:
September 2009

Sicalíptica.

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KuropatwaMroku wrote:
September 2009

In fact Poland lies in Central Europe :)

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OuiTisRoz wrote:
September 2009

Oh my, this makes me even more obsessed with Eastern Europe.

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ziggystar72 wrote:
September 2009

Possibly the most beautiful piece of music ever written [2]

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Fink-Ployd wrote:
September 2009

Possibly the most beautiful piece of music ever written

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ilovemusix wrote:
September 2009

Amazing!

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Mark_JJW wrote:
September 2009

soundtrack moich przyjazdow na stacje "warszawa centralna"

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daemnian wrote:
September 2009

Just goes to show what a genius Eno is. [3]

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chelsea88 wrote:
September 2009

"David Bowie korzystając z postoju pociągu na stacji Warszawa Gdańska wybrał się na spacer na niedaleki plac Komuny Paryskiej, gdzie w księgarni zakupił kilka płyt. Jedną z nich były nagrania polskich piosenek ludowych w wykonaniu Zespołu Pieśni i Tańca „Śląsk”." On jest po prostu NIE-SA-MO-WI-TY

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