"Golden Years" was the first single off of "Station To Station" but sounded like it should have been included on "Young Americans" instead. The song came about when Bowie got inspired after listening to The Drifters version of "On Broadway" released in 1963. He started playing piano, riffing off the song to form the melody and he crafted a pop and R&B smash with the very groovy "Golden Years". He offered it to Elvis Presley who declined to record it. Hell, even Bing Crosby knew that David was an up and comer and embraced his talent on his Christmas TV special.
Bowie kept the song for himself and included it on "Station To Station" making it the first single from the new album. The rest of the album embraced the electronic sounds coming out of Germany at the time, (think Kraftwerk) and the plastic soul sound of "Golden Years" was in direct contrast to that. I think it was a wise move on his part. The addition of "Golden Years" made me purchase "Station To Station", and got me to listen to the rest of the album and develop an appreciation for his new experimental sound.
He did solidify his chart presence with "Golden Years" after the #1 hit "Fame" earlier that year. Behind the board for both songs was engineer/Producer Harry Maslin who engineered #1 pop singles for Barry Manilow (Mandy) and then the duet of Dionne Warwick with The Spinners on "Then Came You" by the time he produced Bowie's "Fame". He was then asked to perform "Golden Years" on "Soul Train" being one of the few white recording artists to appear on the show. The video clip of his performance helped the song to stay on the charts for 16 weeks, eventually peaking at #10 in early 1976.
I felt like I the rug had been pulled out from under me when I heard that Bowie died last January 10. "Panic In Detroit", "Space Oddity", "Diamond Dogs", "Changes"...all on the official soundtrack of my life. He was such an integral part of my musical education and now his voice was silenced forever. I remember listening to his music at my friend Colleen's home whose sister Cindy had all of his records. The man was never boring. The first purrfection version I ever did was "Fame" back in 2006. I finally got my paws on the music stems for "Golden Years" and got really excited about completing this disco version. This is a tribute to my fallen idol, David Bowie. Long live the starman.