Neuköln

This article is about the instrumental work. For the administrative borough of Berlin, see Neukölln. For the borough's quarter, see Neukölln (locality). For Neu-Cölln, the historical district of Berlin, see Cölln. For the neighborhood Neuköln in North Rhine-Westphalia, see Oberhausen. For the mine Neu-Cöln, see Borbeck-Mitte.

"Neuköln" is an instrumental piece written by David Bowie and Brian Eno in 1977 for the album Heroes. It was the last of three consecutive instrumentals on side two of the original vinyl album, following "Sense of Doubt" and "Moss Garden".

"Neuköln"
Instrumental by David Bowie
from the album "Heroes"
Released	14 October 1977
Recorded	July–August 1977
Studio	Hansa Studio by the Wall, West Berlin
Genre	Ambient
Length	4:34
Label	RCA
Songwriter(s)	David Bowie, Brian Eno
Producer(s)	David Bowie, Tony Visconti

Neukölln (correctly spelled with a double "L"^[1]) is both a borough and quarter of Berlin. Bowie's and Eno's music has been interpreted as reflecting in part the rootlessness of the Turkish immigrants who made up a large proportion of the district's population.^[2] Edgar Froese, founder of Tangerine Dream, in whose Schöneberg apartment Bowie lived between 1976 and 1978,^[3][4] had been a big influence on Bowie, and one of the driving factors that enticed him to move to Berlin. Bowie called Froese's 1975 album Epsilon in Malaysian Pale, which, like "Neuköln", utilized the Mellotron, a "soundtrack to his life in Berlin".^[5][6][7]

NME journalists Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray described "Neuköln" as a "mood piece" for the "Cold War viewed through a bubble of blood or Harry Lime's last thoughts as he dies in the sewer in The Third Man".^[3] The final section features Bowie's plaintive saxophone "booming out across a harbour of solitude, as if lost in fog".^[2]

The main character Christiane from the film Christiane F., starring David Bowie as himself, is from Gropiusstadt in the south of the Neukölln borough. Bowie produced the Christiane F. soundtrack, which gave the film a commercial boost in Germany and abroad.

Bowie's and Eno's "Neuköln" was later reworked for orchestra by Philip Glass as the fifth movement of his Symphony No. 4 – Heroes (1996). It also inspired the fusion jazz diptych Neuköln (Day) and Neuköln (Night) by Dylan Howe (2007/14).

Cover versions

• Philip Glass – Symphony No. 4 – Heroes (1996)
• Dylan Howe – Subterranean – New Designs on Bowie's Berlin (2014)
• Shearwater – as part of a live performance of the entire Berlin Trilogy for WNYC (2018)^[8]