Day 301 | No One Calls

This is an obscure 1999 song originally released as the B side of “Thursday’s Child” but never heard from again. It sounds like a leftover from Outside, adjusted to sound more like it could fit on “Hours…” If you know the two albums, you’ll know what I mean when you hear it (probably for the first time). Oddly, perhaps as another sign that Bowie wasn’t really paying attention to this song, he sings, “nobody calls” throughout and never “no one calls.” Did he need a B side, pull this out of the safe, polish it up and slap a title on it? If so, it still manages to be a pleasant discovery. Unlike some of his obscure early songs that are interesting to come across but not necessarily great listening because of poor production quality, this is a real song. There are certainly an album’s worth of these- b sides, one-offs on other people’s’ albums, soundtrack and compilation contributions — which I don’t listen to much because they aren’t together on a Bowie album. Maybe a future project.