Image: Parlophone Records
The forthcoming box set, Rock ‘N’ Roll Star!, which covers David Bowie‘s Ziggy Stardust era, contains a version of The Who‘s I Can’t Explain which was recorded about a year before the Pin Ups album dropped. That one contained covers of songs which influenced Bowie as he was growing up, from The Who, The Easybeats, Them, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, and other influential 60s outfits.
Bowie had been fooling around with I Can’t Explain during the period between The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars and Aladdin Sane; the early version of it was tracked in the summer of 1972 at London’s Trident Studios, where he also recorded Ziggy and Aladdin. It’s more aligned with the sound of The Who than the slower sax-infused version which ended up on Pin Ups.
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Star! box set will drop Friday June 14 on Parlophone.
Love, Dr. Scott James
