'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore

The B-Side of the 2014 single, "Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)," this song gets its title from a 17th century English play called 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. A tragedy written by John Ford, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore was first performed around 1630. Ford's failure to condemn his protagonist's incestuous passion for his sister made the play one of the most controversial works in English literature.

Bowie said the song was inspired by the destruction of World War I. "If Vorticists wrote rock music it might have sounded like this," he said, referring to the short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry that emerged just before the war began.