Songoftheday 2/2/13 - I stumble into town just like a sacred cow visions of swastikas in my head, plans for everyone Its in the white of my eyes...

David Bowie - "China Girl"
from the album Let's Dance (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #10 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's Song of the Day is by the Thin White Duke himself, David Bowie, who brought his big pop comeback in 1983 with the Nile Rodgers-produced album Let's Dance and the title track that became his second #1 single. For the followup David recorded a song that he and punk legend Iggy Pop wrote in Berlin in the 70s that Iggy originally recorded for his The Idiot album.

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David's version took a lot of the Oriental instrumental inflection out (save the beginning) and dropped in all the Chic disco goodness...

"China Girl" became a huge hit all over Europe, reaching #2 in Britain, Ireland, and the Netherlands, while stopping in the pop top-10 in America for a week. It also made the top-3 on the rock radio chart, and was a minor club hit as well.

In 1998, Britpop band James recorded a cover of the song...

Pete Yorn also put out a version as a bonus track on a CD of his..

Here's David himself from the tour behind the album..

..and again on VH1 Storytellers in 1999...

Up tomorrow: Wama-lama-bama-lama.