Effectively the album that “The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars” could have been had David Bowie not decided to drop four tracks in favour of the songs “Starman”, “Rock’n’Roll Suicide”, “Suffragette City” and a cover of Ron Davies’ “It Ain’t Easy”, “Waiting In The Sky (Before The Starman Came To Earth)” significantly redraws the blueprint for the breakout Bowie album fans already know and love.
On Side One, in place of “Starman” (one of the last three tracks recorded for the album, in February 1972), is “Round and Round”, a cover of the Chuck Berry classic, which Bowie eventually put on the B-side of “Drive-In Saturday”, in 1973. Instead of “It Ain’t Easy”, “Waiting For The Sky’s” first side concludes with Bowie’s dramatic version of Jacques Brel’s “Amsterdam“, which would later appear as the B-side of “Sorrow”, the sole single lifted from Bowie’s covers album, “Pin Ups”.
Side Two of this original, 15th December 1971 track-list of “Ziggy Stardust” also featured two long-time non-LP fan favourites, “Holy Holy” and “Velvet Goldmine”. The version of “Holy Holy” that features here is The Spiders From Mars’ re-recording of Bowie’s 1971 standalone single – a take that didn’t officially surface until it became the B-side of the “Diamond Dogs” single, in June 1974, by which time Bowie had long since jettisoned his Ziggy Stardust alter ego.
The cover of “Waiting In The Sky (Before The Starman Came To Earth)” features a photo of David taken at an early Ziggy Stardust period session by Brian Ward, and the two sides of the inner bags are the fronts of the two Trident Studios tape boxes. The album’s title comes from the lyrics of ‘Starman’, which, along with ‘Rock ’N’ Roll Suicide’ and ‘Suffragette City’, had not yet been recorded when this variation of the album was compiled.
DAVID BOWIE – ” Waiting in the Sky (Before the Starman Came to Earth) “ Record Store Day 2024
The Fat Angel Sings 