Songoftheday 2/11/14 - Blossom fails to bloom this season promise not to stare too long, for this is not a miracle...

David Bowie & the Pat Metheny Group - "This Is Not America"
from the album The Falcon & The Snowman (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #32 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4

Today's Song of the Day was a collaboration between one of the most reknown jazz guitarists of the 80s, Pat Metheny, with the Thin White Duke himself, David Bowie, who had just scored another top-ten single in 1984 with "Blue Jean". After a couple of efforts with Jaco Pastorius and Lyle Mays, Metheny formed his fusion group in 1977, and a year later released his self-titled debut album. By 1981, they were topping the Jazz Albums chart with As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls. In 1984, Metheny was contracted to produce the soundtrack for the Timothy Hutton/Sean Penn espionage movie The Falcon and the Snowman. For one of the tracks, "This Is Not America", Pat snagged Bowie to sing on the record, and the moody, spacey number gave the jazz great his first pop radio exposure...

"This Is Not America" reached the American top-40 in March of 1985, while reaching #7 on the rock radio list in Billboard. Internationally, the single went to #1 in the Netherlands, top-10 in Italy and Germany, and top-20 in Canada and the UK. It would be Metheny's only time on the pop chart.

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Here's Metheny with singer Anna Maria Jopek in 2002 live with "This Is Not America"...

Meanwhile, here's David live in 2000...

Bowie also appeared on the P. Diddy track "American Dream" from the movie Training Day interpolating the song..

Here's another live Metheny take from 1995...

Up tomorrow: Boston new wavers can't understand your denial.