Thursday’s Child

Hours, 1999

This lush, reflective ballad was inspired by Eartha Kitt’s autobiography of the same name. Along with DH Lawrence, it provided the 14-year-old Bowie with some of his “favourite bedtime reading”, according to his VH1 Storytellers appearance. There’s no deeper significance here. Despite the nursery rhyme’s insistence that “Thursday’s child had far to go”, Bowie was born on a Wednesday. There’s something of The Buddha Of Suburbia in this Reeves Gabrels co-production’s mood, and its intrinsic melancholia is accentuated by a dreamlike Holly Palmer backing vocal. Having passed through the cleansing fire of Outside, Bowie’s narrator finally appears to be finding inner peace.