Diamond Dogs - 2016 Remaster

This song introduces us to Bowie's post-Ziggy Stardust persona, Halloween Jack: "The Halloween Jack is a real cool cat and he lives on top of Manhattan Chase." It has also been suggested this song was influenced by Dhalgren, a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany.

The line, "Tod Browning's freak you was" refers to the film Freaks, which was produced and directed by Tod Browning.

Coveted session musician, Herbie Flowers, played bass guitar on this track. Flowers is best known for co-founding the early '70s group, Blue Mink, playing the bass line on Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side" and penning Clive Dunn's 1970 UK novelty chart-topper "Grandad." In 2008, Flowers spoke to Uncut magazine about his time spent working on the Diamond Dogs album: "We did Diamond Dogs very fast, doing basic tracks in three days in the little studio at Olympic. Bowie was writing a lot of the stuff as we were going. I think it was a semi-rescue attempt from his proposed George Orwell musical. The music was weird. I have to say I found it mildly unattractive at the time, but it was interesting stuff. Touring Diamond Dogs across America afterwards, it felt like those new songs were anarchic, all about tearing things down. It was prophetic in many ways. And the music was so loud and angry. Those shows were well organized. Strange things were going on, too. There was some in-fighting and maybe a lot of other things going on. But the band stuck together."