Brian Eno is reworking his “powerful” David Bowie collaboration ‘Get Real’ for a new climate change album project.
The 75-year-old musician and songwriter first recorded the song with Bowie – who passed away in 2016 at the age of 69 – during the ‘1. Outside’ sessions in the 1990s, and his new version features recordings of hyenas and wild pigs to align with the theme of the new record.
He told the ‘Midnight Chats’ podcast: “Well, I’ve got a number of recordings of different animals here. I wanted big, slightly menacing animals in the song. Not birds and wind and things like that. So I tried a Siberian tiger, that was a bit too overwhelming. I tried some rooks. I’ve always loved rooks, but they sounded like ducks in that context, which is not quite the same message. And the two I’ve settled on and I’m working with at the moment – I haven’t finished this piece yet – are hyenas and wild pigs.
“It’s a powerful song. Very good lyrics. And with this new kind of container that we’re putting it in of being a song about relationship with the Earth, I think it really works.”
And Brian is sure that David would approve.
He said: “The wild pigs sound really good. They’re in a kind of frequency range which is quite hard to fit into the music, but I’m working on that. So yes we’ll have David, Bri and some wild pigs!
“He would have loved it. Yeah, he’d say: ‘Sounds good to me, Bri. I think we should go ahead with that’.”