Can You Hear Me? (David Bowie song)

"Can You Hear Me?"
Song by David Bowie
from the album Young Americans
A-side"Golden Years"
ReleasedNovember 1975
RecordedJanuary – August 1974
Studio
GenreBlue-eyed soul
Length5:04
LabelRCA
Songwriter(s)David Bowie
Producer(s)Bowie, Tony Visconti, Harry Maslin

"Can You Hear Me?" is a ballad by the English musician David Bowie from his 1975 album Young Americans.[1] Bowie called it a "real love song", written with someone in mind, but he did not identify them.[2] The song was released as a single in November 1975 on the B side of "Golden Years".

Chris O'Leary writes that "Can You Hear Me?", with its guilt and "studied unease", is "sumptuous, its intro alone masterful": "Once we were lovers / Can they understand? / Closer than others, I was your / I was your man." The alto sax, played by David Sanborn and introduced in the third verse, "becomes a competing vocal line". The arrangement and "small cathedral of voices" obscure the "pathetic man at the heart of the song".[3]

The song was written by Bowie, produced by Bowie, Tony Visconti, and Harry Maslin, and engineered by Carl Paruolo.[3] The backing vocalists included the 24-year-old Luther Vandross at the very beginning of his career.[4]

  1. ^ Easlea, Daryl (2007). "David Bowie Young Americans Review". BBC Music.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference O'Grady23Aug1975 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ a b O'Leary 2015, chap. 9.
  4. ^ Slate, Jeff (23 September 2016). "The Making of David Bowie's Lost Soul Album". Esquire.