"It's No Game" is a song written by English musician David Bowie for his 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), featuring lead guitar played by Robert Fripp.
1)" is musically sinister, featuring Bowie screaming lyrics and Japanese narration provided by actress Michi Hirota.
Recording sessions for Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) began at the Power Station in New York City in February 1980.
[2] Recorded around the same time was the instrumental "Crystal Japan"; it was originally intended to be the album's closing track, but was dropped in favour of a reprise of "It's No Game".
[5] Parts of "It's No Game" were adapted from an earlier, unreleased song titled "Tired of My Life", which Bowie demoed at Haddon Hall in mid-1970.
1)" are spoken in Japanese by Michi Hirota, with Bowie screaming the English translation "as if he's literally tearing out his intestines", according to NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray.
[2] Bowie said that he employed a strident female vocal "to break down a particular kind of sexist attitude" regarding Japanese girls and women in general;[5] Hirota recites the lyrics as-is, complete with the strong male "I" pronoun, ore.
The track ends with an intense guitar loop played by Fripp, followed by Bowie screaming "Shut up!".
[9] Similar to how the album begins, it ends with the sound of a tape rewinding and playing out, although this time, it slows to a halt.
[10][2] Both parts of "It's No Game" were released on 12 September 1980 on Bowie's 14th studio album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), with "(No.
[10] A specially created pressing featuring both parts 1 and 2 for the first time on 7" vinyl was included with the book Speed of Life (Genesis Publications, 2012) released in a limited edition of 2,000 copies signed by Bowie and photographer Masayoshi Sukita.
[10] O'Leary writes that for the musical, Bowie turned "It's No Game" into an "absurdist set piece": stuck in his apartment, the character of Thomas Jerome Newton, after witnessing a violent death montage, "hallucinates being hurled around the room by a female samurai".