Written by: David Bowie, Hunt Sales, Tony Sales
Recorded: September – November 1989; April, September – October 1990; March 1991
Producers: Tin Machine, Tim Palmer
Released: 2 September 1991
Available on:
Tin Machine II
Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby
Personnel
Contents
Reeves Gabrels: guitar
Tony Sales: bass guitar
Hunt Sales: drums
One of the rare highlights on Tin Machine II, ‘Goodbye Mr Ed’ contains some of David Bowie’s most arresting and effective lyrics.
The song contrasts the fate of the Weckquaesgeek, the pre-colonial Native American occupants of southernmost Manhattan, with New York’s modern-day shopping malls and skyscrapers. “The ghost of Manhattoe” cry as they fall from AT&T, victims of rampant commercialism and modern day ‘progress’.
The effect is a slideshow of victims and unfortunates, from Andy Warhol’s skull “in a shopping mall near Queens” to the washed up punks who “laid the Golem eggs”, Icarus to Breughel. Gone is the triumphalism of Halloween Jack surveying Hunger City from atop Manhattan Chase in 1974, and in its place is empathy and regret.
It is very much juxtaposing lines which really shouldn’t fit, free-association around the idea of ‘bye-bye, ’50s America.’ New York once belonged to the Manahattos – a tribe that used to have that bit of land before it became Manhattan. That was the first real, solid image I had… I thought, ‘That’s what this song’s about.’
Musician, September 1991
‘Goodbye Mr Ed’ originated as a jam from Tin Machine’s Sydney recording sessions at the end of 1989.
We all came back from lunch and David had written a whole sheet of lyrics for it, and then he put the vocal on later with the melody.
Musician, September 1991
Parts of the recording of Tin Machine II took place in breaks in Bowie’s Sound + Vision Tour in 1990. ‘Goodbye Mr Ed’ was worked on during a few days’ break ahead of his show in Miami on 27 April 1990.
David would call up and say, ‘I’m going to have a week off in Miami in a month, if you want to meet me there, we can do more stuff.’ For example, ‘Goodbye Mr Ed’ was just a rhythm track until we got to Miami.
Typhe magazine
Tin Machine performed ‘Goodbye Mr Ed’ throughout the It’s My Life Tour in 1991-2. A recording from Tokyo on 17 February 1992 was released on the album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby.
I am 66 and a life long Bowie fan. I actually have had the Tin Machine CD probably since it came out. I know I head the song many times but until just a few days ago ( maybe because I have only in the past 4 years been learning from an incrediblely talented blues guitarist, “Murray the Wheel” here in Conn. ) that the song suddenly had such an impact on my emotions that as I was driving along it brought tears to my eyes & crying.
You see, my name is Ed and up until then I don’t think the name ever registered. I assumed that it was some kind of reference to the times around the program and it’s passing but, I took it completely out of context and interpreted an almost personal message
due to my severe depression/anxiety/bipolar mind and having been isolated twice & attempted suicide once.
I had no clue at all as to what the lyrics were referring to but, now that I know, I feel better about myself ( still the song haunts me ) but it still very much saddens me as I reminisce of those days when my 1 year younger brother ( heroine suicide at 40 if I rememember correctly ) and I laughed the Mr. Ed together. ( younger sister passed from lukemia at age 3? { only 1 memory of her } / father in 2010 stroked but was a better end than the horror of the parkinsons / mom was the first COVID death in a CT. nursing home and without any children I am truely alone in the world… I’ll carry that song in my heart for the rest of my life.
I’m quite the vocalist and will most assuredly kareoke the song since there is no way “Murray the Wheel” will ever play it with me…