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2014 single by David Bowie

Not to be confused with `Tis Pity She`s a Whore.

"`Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" is a song by English musician David Bowie, released on 17 November 2014 as the B-side of "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)". Taking influence from John Ford`s 1633 play `Tis Pity She`s a Whore, the art rock song pits dark and violent lyrics against a rhythmic beat. Bowie recorded the track as a demo in mid-2014 at his home studio in New York City. The song, along with "Sue", was re-recorded for Bowie`s twenty-sixth and final studio album, Blackstar (2016). The new version features the backing band from those sessions: saxophonist Donny McCaslin, pianist Jason Lindner, bassist Tim Lefebvre and drummer Mark Guiliana. Unlike the original, the remake is influenced by hip hop while reviewers compared Bowie`s vocal performance to various 1970s tracks. The remake was positively received, with many highlighting the performances of the backing musicians. In the wake of Bowie`s death, two days after Blackstar`s release, "`Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" charted in multiple countries, including number 107 in the UK.

Background and recording

Bowie recorded a home demo of "`Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" in mid-2014 at his home studio in his New York City apartment.[1] It holds a distinction in his catalogue as being one of few songs in which he played every instrument himself.[2] Upon hearing the demo, his regular collaborator Tony Visconti stated: "It was just kick-ass. His production skills have gone up 5,000%."[3] The title derives from the 1633 play `Tis Pity She`s a Whore by 17th century English dramatist John Ford.[4] However, while Ford`s play is a tale of incestuous love and vengeance, the lyrics themselves are darker and more violent; biographer Nicholas Pegg believes they are taken from an entirely different source.[2] Nevertheless, Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork argues that the two share the same theme–"humans will always resort to a language of savagery when necessary, no matter where or when."[5] Bowie himself only released one public statement on the song: "If Vorticists wrote Rock Music it might have sounded like this."[a][6]

O`Leary writes that the song has a "steady rhythmic" beat that is counteracted by Bowie`s saxophone and piano. Regarding the bass part, Jason Lindner stated: "Compositionally the bass part has more of a rhythmic and less of a harmonic function. It remains pretty much the same through the harmonic changes, with a couple of notes shifting to complement the progression." Bowie`s vocal performance is subdued while he plays a "continuo figure" on saxophone.[3] Stephen Dalton of Classic Rock magazine writes that the song has "a propulsive, roaring, heavily electronic wall of sound."[7] Mojo critic Andrew Male described the track as "a raucous five-minute mesh of melody and discord, an art-rock anti-war romance, gasping under the pack-ice of no-wave sax-squawk."[6] The magazine listed it as Bowie`s 38th best track in 2015.[8]

"`Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" was released on 17 November 2014 by Parlophone as the B-side of the single "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)",[1][9] with the catalogue number 10RDB2014.[10] A press release accompanying the B-side stated, "The song acknowledges the shocking rawness of the First World War".[2]

Blackstar version

Recording

Before the sessions for what would be his final studio album Blackstar began, Bowie sent his home demo of "`Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" to saxophonist Donny McCaslin. McCaslin, who worked with Bowie on the original version of "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)", recalled, "I sat there in stunned silence for a while," after hearing it. After hiring McCaslin`s jazz quartet — pianist Jason Lindner, bassist Tim Lefebvre and drummer Mark Guiliana — as the backing band for the sessions, Bowie sent the demo to the remaining musicians in preparation for the sessions.[2][3] Both "`Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" and its A-side "Sue" were re-recorded for Blackstar.[11]

The remake of "`Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" was one of the first tracks recorded for the album. The backing track was recorded on 5 January 2015 at the Magic Shop in New York City. McCaslin recalled: "When we got together that first week, David said he wanted to re-record [it]. We were playing hard, going for it. That just happened in like ten minutes. That might have been the first take." McCaslin recorded additional saxophone overdubs months later.[3] Like most of the vocal tracks, Bowie recorded his vocals at Human Worldwide Studios in New York City on 20 and 22 April 2015.[2]

Composition

For the re-recording, Bowie took inspiration from McCaslin`s 2012 album Casting for Gravity; Lefebvre stated: "usually it`s the other way around – you research the guy who hired you."[3] According to McCaslin, Bowie said, "he imagined the solo section as being something like `Alpha and Omega`, which is the Boards of Canada track we covered, or maybe talk about the intensity we have on `Praia Grande`."[2] Biographer Chris O`Leary notes that in McCaslin`s cover of "Alpha and Omega", McCaslin, who`s multitrack, plays a "looped, phased melodic theme" over fluctuations played by Guiliana and Lefebvre; "Praia Grande" builds "to a maximalist sax solo full of waggled bass notes, surfing over waves of drums and synths."[3]

Regarding the drum part, Guiliana stated: "The groove on the demo was a driving one-bar loop. The challenge was to play this repetitive part but stay in the moment and keep pushing the intensity." Guiliana overdubbed a Roland SPD-SX "full of 808 sounds", which appear prominently in the mix around the 3:33 mark.[3] The remake opens with two intakes of breath, which O`Leary compares to "a man readying himself to walk up another flight of stairs".[3]

Commentators have characterised the song`s beat as similar to hip hop.[4][12] Chris Gerard of PopMatters finds Bowie`s vocals reminiscent of the Lodger track "DJ".[13] Andy Gill of The Independent describes the re-recordings of both "`Tis" and "Sue" as "frantic, bustling whirls of avant-garde, banshee sax improvisation and drumming"; he compares Bowie`s vocal performance and lyrics to his 1976 track "Station to Station".[14]

Release

The re-recording of "`Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" was released on 8 January 2016 as the second track on Bowie`s final album Blackstar, sequenced between the title track and "Lazarus".[15] Bowie died two days after its release, after having suffered from liver cancer for 18 months.[16][17]

The re-recording of "`Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" has received positive reviews from music critics, with many highlighting the performance of the backing band.[18] Gerard praised the remake as "far more fully developed" than the 2014 original, giving particular attention to the backing band. He writes that the band "infuses Blackstar with a restless anxiety that is particularly evident on ``Tis a Pity She Was a Whore`," calling the final track "maddening and thrilling".[13] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian similarly praised the band`s "synergy" on the track, while positively comparing Bowie`s vocal performance to the "exploratory, barely contained chaos" of "`Heroes`" and "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)" or the "tumultuous, wildly distorted version" seen on "Panic in Detroit" and "Cracked Actor".[19] O`Leary has praised the track as "a latter-life masterpiece, with no top and no bottom."[3]

Personnel

According to biographer Chris O`Leary:[1]

Original version

• David Bowie – vocals, guitar, tenor saxophone, piano, synthesiser, keyboards, drum machine

Blackstar version

• David Bowie – lead and backing vocal
• Donny McCaslin – tenor saxophone
• Jason Lindner – piano, keyboards
• Tim Lefebvre – bass
• Mark Guiliana – drums, Roland SPD-SX
• Erin Tonkin – backing vocal

Charts

Chart performance for "`Tis a Pity She Was a Whore"

Release history

Release history for "`Tis a Pity She Was a Whore"