“Valentine's Day” by David Bowie

"Valentine's Day" was the fourth single David Bowie pulled from The Next Day, his 25th studio album, and it reached the shops on Columbia in August 2013. Behind its art-rock sheen sits a grim subject: the song climbs inside the head of a school shooter.

It came together late in the album sessions. The backing track went down at the Magic Shop in New York in July 2012, and Bowie came back to sing it at Human Worldwide Studios that September. Earl Slick plays the guitars and Sterling Campbell the drums, while Tony Visconti handles bass, mixes it and co-produces with Bowie. It turned out to be the last 7-inch Bowie issued from a fresh album in his lifetime, and Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri and Markus Klinko, who had worked with him on Heathen in 2002, directed the video.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.