The final song of Low, "Subterraneans" was meant to invoke the misery of those in East Berlin during the Cold War. According to Bowie, people who "got caught in East Berlin after the separation - hence the faint jazz saxophones representing the memory of what it was."^[1]

Together with "Ian Fish, U.K. Heir" and "The Mysteries" from The Buddha of Suburbia, this song is among Bowie's most subdued and ambient. "Subterraneans" was ultimately the most heavily edited song on Low, with the reversed instrument sounds, multilayered synthesizers from Brian Eno, saxophone from Bowie, and a heavy layering of Bowie's near-chanted vocal. The music contains a synthesiser motif identical to that of Edward Elgar's Nimrod, the 9th Enigma Variation.

The piece was rumoured to be originally intended for use in the soundtrack to the film The Man Who Fell to Earth, in which Bowie played the lead role. Though this rumour was false, the reversed track used as the bassline in this piece was actually the only remaining intact part of the film soundtrack that Bowie used on the Low album.

1 Lyrics
2 Live versions
3 Cover versions
4 References
5 Sources

[edit] Lyrics

The lyrics are amongst Bowie's most inaccessible, and, superficially at least, seem to make no sense. "Subterraneans" is mostly instrumental, with brief, obscure lyrics sung near the song's end. Bowie reports^[2] that during the recording of Low he was "intolerably bored" with conventional narrative rock and roll lyrics.

According to the liner notes to the 1999 rerelease of Low, the lyrics are:

Share bride failing star

care-line care-line care-line care-line driving me Shirley, Shirley, Shirley, own.

However, it is debated^{[citation needed]} that the lyric "care-line" is in fact the woman's name "Caroline," or that "Shirley" is not a name, but the word "surely."

[edit] Live versions

The song was used as an introduction to Bowie's set during the 1995 Outside tour. It was different from the album version in that its lyrics and musical themes were merged from the song "Scary Monsters" (which would follow "Subterraneans" on the setlists). This version was performed alongside their co-headliners, Nine Inch Nails.