'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore

Not to be confused with 'Tis Pity She's a Whore.
"'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore"
Single by David Bowie
A-side "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)" (10")
Released 10 November 2014
Format
Recorded
  • 2014 (single version)
  • 2015 (Blackstar version)
Genre Art rock
Length
  • 5:26 (single version)
  • 4:52 (Blackstar version)
Label
Writer(s) David Bowie
Producer(s)
David Bowie singles chronology
"Love Is Lost"
(2013)		 "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore"
(2014)		 "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)"
(2014)
Blackstar track listing
"Blackstar"
(1)		 "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore"
(2)		 "Lazarus"
(3)

"'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" is a song by English musician David Bowie. It was originally released as a non-album single on 10 November 2014. It was later featured as the B-side for Bowie's next single, "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)", which was released exactly one week later. A re-recorded version of the song appears as the second track on Bowie's twenty-fifth and final studio album, Blackstar. "Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" charted in multiple countries, including Bowie's home country of the UK, where it peaked at number 107.

Background and recording

"'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" was released as a single on 10 November 2014 and was later featured as one of the B-sides to "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)", Bowie's following single.[1] The name of the song derives from the play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore by John Ford, an English dramatist of the 17th century.[2] Both songs were re-recorded for Bowie's twenty-fifth and final studio album, Blackstar, released on 8 January 2016. American jazz musician Donny McCaslin provided new saxophone parts for the re-recording of "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore". Bowie had done saxophone parts himself for the original version of the song.[3]

On the sound of the song, Bowie wrote: "If Vorticists wrote Rock Music it might have sounded like this."[4]

Critical reception

Mojo critic Andrew Male described the track as "a raucous five-minute mesh of melody and discord, an art-rock anti-war romance, gasping under the pack-ice of no-wave sax-squawk."[4]

Track listing

Digital download

Digital release[5]
No. Title Length
1. "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore"   5:26

10" vinyl

Side A
No. Title Length
1. "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)"   7:24
Side B
No. Title Length
1. "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore"   5:27
2. "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)" (Radio edit) 4:01

Charts

Chart (2014–16) Peak
position
Belgium (Ultratip Flanders)[6] 78
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[7] 68
Sweden (Sverigetopplistan)[8] 63
UK Singles (Official Charts Company)[9] 107
US Hot Rock Songs (Billboard)[10] 34

Release history

Region Date Format(s) Label Catalogue no.
Worldwide 10 November 2014 Digital download ISO none[5]
Europe 14 November 2014 10" (B-side) Parlophone 10RDB2014[1]
United States 28 November 2014 Columbia 88875028701[11]

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, March 12, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.