Beauty And The Beast

In the studio

True to form, we all congregated in Berlin with nothing more than chord changes and rhythm ideas, not yet songs. Carlos, George and Dennis instinctively knew what to do from the start but played harder than the previous album. Low was like learning a new alphabet. “Heroes” was the subsequent pulp fiction novel! Like Low, it didn’t take very long to record the seven band tracks. They took less than a week. Carlos stayed behind to add more guitar but the parts were more supportive than fiery. We were expecting Robert Fripp to start the fire…

It’s hard to believe that ‘Beauty And The Beast’ to ‘The Secret Life Of Arabia’ were just backing tracks arranged on the spot with no knowledge of titles, vocal melodies or lyrics. Once a riff was established, as in ‘Beauty And The Beast’, a lick, an interjection, a countermelody, a quirky drum fill all fell into place naturally. Somehow it was mutually sensed where singing would and wouldn’t be. Emotional music textures, not songs, were being recorded.

Robert Fripp’s guitar sound was sent through various effects pedals, with the last fed into Brian Eno’s EMS Synthi, a portable modular analogue synthesizer.

Fripp and Eno dazzled us as collaborators. All the lead guitar was played by Fripp plugged into a few FX pedals for sustain and distortion. The final pedal was plugged into Brian’s EMS briefcase Synthi. It was the ultimate pedal. You couldn’t buy one of these and expect instant gratification on the first day you unboxed it. A thorough technical knowledge of the components of sound is required. Like the four primary flavours in cooking there are four primary types of sound waves: square, rectangular, triangular and saw tooth. A musical sound needs a start, a middle and an end, attack, sustain and decay. For expression there are modulations that can be manipulated such as vibrato, tremolo and other variables. Every sound needed to be built from scratch and Brian Eno had already invested years in this instrument making it bend to his will.

Robert played the notes and Brian constantly manipulated them with filters, knobs and a joystick.

Fripp’s opening notes on ‘Beauty And The Beast’ were the first he played upon his arrival at the studio, Hansa by the Wall in West Berlin.

I landed in Frankfurt and had to make the connecting flight, carrying my Cornish pedalboard, with fuzz, wah-wah, and volume pedals. At the time, 1977 in Germany, the Baader Meinhof Group were in active go mode and I remember the German security guard looking at my pedalboard, wondering what on earth I was trying to smuggle on board. So anyway I made the connection to Berlin, caught a taxi to my hotel, which I believe was the former SS headquarters, dumped my stuff, got myself together, and then went to Hansa Studios by the Wall for about quarter to six in the evening, jet-lagged, pretty sleepless, and said to David and Brian, ‘Well, would you like to play me some of the things you’ve been doing?’ Eno said, ‘Why don’t you plug in?’ So I plugged into Eno’s magic suitcase, his VCS3 synthy. They hit the Roll, Play button [makes drumming noises] and then on bar three [makes guitar noises] and sky saw guitars and then straight into ‘Beauty And The Beast’. What you hear on the record, the first track of “Heroes”, is the first note I played on the session…

In terms of “Heroes”, enough work had been done for me to work on top, but not enough to stop me playing on top. I didn’t have very much in the way of guide vocals to work to. I had a few phrases but not much. It was very quick, very spontaneous, and the key to working both with David and with Brian was always ‘play’. Very good professionals often forget to play. Both Bowie and Eno play. Working with them it’s as if the only reason we’re there is to have fun and let rip, see where it goes. So, my best hunch would be there was a framework, a map of the terrain, but it didn’t tell you how you get from A to B. Working with Bowie and Eno, above anyone else I’ve ever worked with, they set up the situation for me to fly. Encouragement and support, without any reservation, constriction, editing – it was stunning. I was in Berlin for the total period of one week.

Live performances

David Bowie performed ‘Beauty And The Beast’ throughout the Isolar II Tour in 1978.

Back in the dressing-rooms, Adrian [Belew] was terrified. “Bob Fripp will be out there… Earl Slick may be coming…” Everyone was uneasy at the reputation of the place and the people coming but in my innocence I felt very relaxed. I didn’t know what piano players might be out front so I wasn’t going to start worrying. I just thought, This is New York and I’m going to have a ball!

And I did right through the first set till somewhere in ‘Beauty And The Beast’ when I looked round and saw Bianca [Jagger] and Coco [Schwab] standing about twelve feet behind me… That shook me more than any musician I could think of and I finished the set unsteadily.

Performances of ‘Beauty And The Beast’ from the tour can be heard on the live albums Stage and Welcome To The Blackout (Live London ’78).