Two previously unreleased versions of David Bowie‘s song ‘Shadow Man’ have now been released – you can hear the tracks below.
‘Shadow Man’, which was initially recorded in 1970, features on the late artist’s ‘lost’ ‘Toy’ album, which includes re-recorded and revamped versions of some of Bowie’s earliest tracks.
To celebrate the release today (January 7) of Bowie’s ‘Toy (Toy:Box)’ special edition box set, two versions of ‘Shadow Man’ have been made available for streaming by ISO Records/Parlophone Records.
The first is the 2000-recorded ‘Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric Mix’, described on Bowie’s site as “a stripped-down mix of a re-recording” of ‘Shadow Man’, which you can hear below.
Speaking about the ‘Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric’ mix, producer Mark Plati recalled: “While we were recording the basic tracks Earl Slick suggested that he and I overdub acoustic guitars on all the songs. He said this was Keith Richards’ trick: sometimes these guitars would be a featured part of the track, and at other times they’d be more subliminal.
“Later, while mixing, David heard one of the songs broken down to just vocals and acoustic guitars; this gave him the idea that we ought to do some stripped-down mixes like that and that maybe one day they’d be useful.”
The second unreleased version of ‘Shadow Man’ arriving today is an early studio demo version of the track, which was recorded in the closing months of 1970 – you can hear that above.
Bowie’s ‘Toy’ album also features in the ‘David Bowie 5. Brilliant Adventure (1992 – 2001)’ box set, which was released back in November.
Earlier this week Spoon shared their cover of David Bowie‘s ‘I Can’t Give Everything Away’ to mark Bowie’s 75th birthday this weekend.