Sense of Doubt

1977 instrumental by David Bowie

"Sense of Doubt"
Instrumental by David Bowie
from the album "Heroes"
Released	14 October 1977
Recorded	July–August 1977
Studio	Hansa Studio by the Wall, West Berlin
Genre	Ambient
Length	3:57
Label	RCA
Songwriter(s)	David Bowie
Producer(s)	David Bowie, Tony Visconti

"Sense of Doubt" is an instrumental piece written by David Bowie in 1977 for the album "Heroes". It was the first of three instrumentals on Side Two of the original vinyl album that segued into one another, preceding "Moss Garden" and "Neuköln".

Cited as "portentous" and "thoroughly foreboding",^[1]^[2] "Sense of Doubt" is one of the darker tracks of the album, with a descending four-note piano motif juxtaposed with "an eerie synth line like a scrap of sound from a silent expressionist-era soundtrack".^[1] Brian Eno suggested that the contrasting themes were the result of him and Bowie each following an Oblique Strategies card to guide them in the track's overdubbing, Eno's directing him to "make everything as similar as possible" and Bowie's to "emphasize differences".^[3]

"Sense of Doubt" was performed on the Italian TV programme L’altra domenica in 1977 and throughout the "Heroes" tour in 1978.^[4]

Live versions

Performances from the 1978 "Heroes" tour have been released on Stage (1978) and Welcome to the Blackout (2018).

Other releases

It was released as the B-side of the single "Beauty and the Beast" in January 1978, a pairing that NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray considered "must be good fun on pub juke-boxes".^[2]
A picture disc release appeared in the RCA Life Time picture disc set.
The film Christiane F. and its soundtrack featured the song.

Cover versions

Philip Glass – "Heroes" Symphony (1996)
Musician Steve Adey covered the track on his 2017 LP "Do Me a Kindness".
Shearwater – as part of a live performance of the entire Berlin Trilogy for WNYC (2018)^[5]

Notes

^ ^a ^b David Buckley (1999). Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story: p.324
^ ^a ^b Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: pp.92-94
^ NME interview (1977) cited at Bowie: Golden Years. Retrieved 20 May 2007. Archived May 1, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
^ Nicholas Pegg (2000). The Complete David Bowie: p.183
^ Dorris, Jesse (23 October 2018). "A Surprising Tribute to David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy, Played in a Manhattan Mall". Pitchfork.com. Retrieved 2022-11-26.