The earliest track recorded for The Next Day, this Trad-Rock stormer has nothing to do with February 14th, but instead namechecks the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre where seven mob associates were murdered as part of a Prohibition-era conflict between two powerful criminal gangs in Chicago. Producer Tony Visconti told NME that "the subject matter is pretty scary." He explained: "It's related to people who go postal, about people who acquire a gun and do awful things with it."
Visconti told NME the song has a "Kinks influence." Certainly the Teddy and June in the song echo the Terry and Julie of The Kinks' hit tune "Waterloo Sunset."
Bowie pays homage to the New York band Television by borrowing a piece of the riff from their track, "See No Evil." Television frontman Tom Verlaine's solo track "Kingdom Come" was covered by Bowie on Scary Monsters.
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