Watch David Bowie’s Hard-Boiled Video for ‘Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)’
by Jon Blistein
David Bowie’s ”Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)” has been given a suitably noirish new video directed by Tom Hingston and Jimmy King. Filmed in London and New York, the clip features the song’s eerie lyrics, as well as footage of Bowie and the Maria Schneider Orchestra recording the track in the studio, superimposed atop shots of a dark, smoke-filled city.
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Over a jittery track cut with bustling percussion and horns that warble and wail, Bowie bellows the tale of a husband and wife whose mundane life deteriorates amidst distrust. As the song builds, the video grows more chaotic and creepy, with numerous shots featuring the silhouette of a figure simply standing in this fallen world. After a succession of lights pierce through a window, Bowie hits the song’s climax and conjures a scene that would make Raymond Chandler proud: “Sue, I’ve pushed you down beneath the weeds / Hopeless fate in hopeless deeds.”
"Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)" is one of two new tracks Bowie will release both as a digital single and a 10-inch vinyl, first in the U.K. on November 17th, then as a "Black Friday" Record Store Day release in the U.S. on November 28th. The other song, “‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" premiered on BBC Radio 6 earlier this week and was inspired by Vorticism, an art and poetry movement that took place in the U.K. around the First World War.
"Sue" will also appear on Nothing Has Changed, a new box set that presents songs from throughout Bowie’s career in reverse chronological order. Nothing Has Changed arrives on November 18th, and also contains two songs from Bowie’s unreleased 2001 album, Toy.
