Ashes to Ashes

It was the lead single from Scary Monsters, released on 1 August 1980 with Move On on the B-side. Bowie and Visconti produced it at the Power Station in New York and Good Earth in London in early 1980, under the working title People Are Turning to Gold. Bowie sang and played electric piano, Chuck Hammer played guitar synthesizer, and Roy Bittan and Andy Clark added keyboards. Bowie called it a story of corruption in an NME interview in 1980.

It entered the UK chart at number four and then went to number one, his second UK number one after Space Oddity. In the US it reached only number 101 on the Bubbling Under chart.

He and David Mallet filmed the video over three days in May 1980 at Beachy Head and Hastings, with Bowie dressed as a Pierrot. Members of the Blitz club, including Steve Strange, appeared in it, and it has been credited with influencing the New Romantics. He played the song on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on 3 September 1980. Tears for Fears, the Shins and Warpaint covered it, and James Murphy's remix of Love Is Lost samples it.