UK single release: You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving

David Bowie’s first single with the Lower Third, ‘You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving’, was released in the United Kingdom on Friday 20 August 1965.

The single, released as Parlophone ‎R 5315, was credited to Davy Jones. The b-side was another Bowie composition, ‘Baby Loves That Way’.

As with its successor, ‘You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving’, the single failed to chart.

The single was produced by Shel Talmy, who had also worked with the Kinks and the Who. Renowned keyboard player Nicky Hopkins played on the session.

It was the big time. David’s recording manager was Shel Talmy. When you consider who was in that room working on that record… Shel Talmy, Glyn Johns was the engineer behind the glass and then you had Nicky Hopkins coming in as a session piano player on it.

I enjoyed the session. I had a bit of a boom in my bass drum, so I got Dave’s tweed jacket he always wore and hung it over the front to stop the boom. I was concentrating on my bit – there’s a lot of feedback on it, and there’s a really strange sound at the end which is completely improvised. David picked up a wine glass and ran it up and down Denis’s fretboard – he did that on the spot, that’s how inventive he was.

We were completely in the dark about the business side of it, we were just hoping to get on to make it. Shel was very laid-back on the session. He let us do our thing, listened to most of it. Then he said, ‘Nice cut,’ and then pissed off. He must have come back, because on the b-side we all did the backing vocals – including him and Les Conn, David’s manager at that moment.