David Bowie: "Alabama Song" Single (1980)

David Bowie’s "Alabama Song" backed with an updated version of "Space Oddity", was released as a 7-inch vinyl single in the UK by RCA Records (catalog number BOW 5) on February 22, 1980, debuting at No. 23 on the UK Singles Chart on March 1, 1980, where it charted for five weeks.

David Bowie, an admirer of Brecht, performed the song during his 1978 Isolar II tour. A live version from this tour, recorded either in Philadelphia on 29 April 1978 or in Boston on 6 May, was included in the 1991, 2005, and 2017 reissues of the live album Stage. On 2 July 1978, a day after the European leg of the tour concluded, Bowie recorded a studio version at Tony Visconti's Good Earth Studios in London with his studio band. Pianist Sean Mayes mentioned that "it had been such a hit on the tour that David wanted to release it as a single." According to NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray, with its unconventional key changes, the track "seemed calculated to disrupt any radio programme on which it was fortunate enough to be played."

Bowie later starred in a BBC adaptation of Brecht's Baal and released an EP featuring songs from the play. He went on to perform "Alabama Song" during his 1990 Sound+Vision and 2002 Heathen tours. The song was also included on the 1992 Rykodisc reissue of Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), as well as on the compilation albums Rare (1982), The Singles Collection (1993), The Best of David Bowie 1980/1987 (2007), and Re:Call 3, part of the A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982) box set, released in 2017.