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"Scream Like a Baby"
"Scream Like a Baby"
Song by David Bowie
from the album Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
Released	September 12, 1980
Recorded	February 1980; April 1980
Studio	Power Station, New York City; Good Earth, London;
Genre	Post-punk
Length	3:35
Label	RCA
Songwriter(s)	David Bowie
Producer(s)	David Bowie, Tony Visconti

"Scream Like a Baby" is a song written by David Bowie. It appears on the 1980 album Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).

Music and lyrics

The song focuses on a protagonist called Sam who is evidently being held, along with the track's narrator, in a political prison. Though set in the future, the story is related in the past tense, in a fashion Bowie has described as "future nostalgia... A past look at something that hasn't happened yet".^[1] Musically the song is noted for its "ultra-modern new wave guitar/synth sound",^[1] as well as for Bowie's use of varispeed vocals to illustrate Sam's downward spiral in the prison hospital – according to NME critics Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray, the effect is "as if the narrator of 'All the Madmen' inhabited the world of '1984'".^[2]

"Scream Like a Baby" was one of several tracks on Scary Monsters that evolved from pieces Bowie had written years before. It was originally composed in 1973, with different lyrics, as "I Am a Laser" for The Astronettes (Ava Cherry, Geoffrey MacCormack and Jason Guess).^[3] Bowie worked on an album for the group but it was eventually dropped, finally surfacing in 1995 as the Ava Cherry album People from Bad Homes; "I Am a Laser" was one of the tracks.^[4]

Release, promotion and live performances

"Scream Like a Baby" was released as the B-side to the single "Fashion" in October 1980.^[4] Bowie intended to play the song during his 1987 Glass Spider Tour, including in rehearsals leading up to the tour, but the song was dropped from the set list by the time the tour started.^[5]

Personnel

According to Chris O'Leary:^[4]

David Bowie – lead and backing vocals
Carlos Alomar – guitar
Andy Clark – synthesizer
George Murray – bass
Dennis Davis – drums

Production

David Bowie – producer
Tony Visconti – producer

Notes

^ ^a ^b Nicholas Pegg (2000). The Complete David Bowie: p.181
^ Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: p.113
^ David Buckley (1999). Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story: p.207
^ ^a ^b ^c O'Leary, Chris (2019). Ashes to Ashes: The Songs of David Bowie 1976–2016. London: Repeater. p. 147. ISBN 978-1-91224-830-8.
^ Currie, David (1987), David Bowie: Glass Idol (1st ed.), London and Margate, England: Omnibus Press, ISBN 0-7119-1182-7